The Global Energy Association held the first “From Regional to Global” conference in Latin America. The event was held at the crossroads of the MERCOSUR integration association (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) in the Uruguayan city of Punta del Este. It was dedicated to Latin America’s role in global energy and the prospects for using clean energy sources in the region.
Alfonso Blanco, executive secretary of the Latin America Energy Organization (OLADE), Fitzgerald Cantero, national energy director in the Uruguayan Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining, and Vadim Titov, president of Rusatom – International Network, engaged in the first session, called “Latin America in the world energy agenda”.
In his speech, Alfonso Blanco mentioned the current situation and development prospects of the energy sector in Latin America, in the context of the global supply crisis. “We should aim the energy programs of our countries both at overcoming the energy transition and diversifying energy sources, and at promoting socio-economic development and improving the living standards of the citizens of our countries,” he said.
The second session was dedicated to the challenges of clean energy availability in the region and the development of nuclear energy in Latin America. Lorena Di Chiara, a research fellow at the Energy and Sustainable Development Observatory of the Catholic University (Uruguay moderated it). The discussion involved the following distinguished figures: Kaushik Rajashekara (University of Houston); Ruben Chaer (Uruguayan Electricity Market Administration); Gonzalo Casaravilla (University of the Republic, Uruguay), Ivan Dybov (Brazilian Association for the Development of Nuclear Activities (ABDAN)), and William Byun (Asia Renewables).
Overall, the conference showed that in the coming years, Latin America would show a growing demand for energy sources that combine low emissions with the security of energy supply, including nuclear generation, as well as solar, wind, and hydropower. This applies to the region’s most densely populated agglomerations, which are increasing their demand for energy due to economic growth, and to remote areas, which need uninterruptible power supplies and are isolated from the public grid.
