Electricity Generation and Electric Power in Chile Before 1975

Abstract

This chapter analyses the characteristics of the Chilean electricity sector from its beginnings until the 1970s. Its development occurred in two long stages, with very different business dynamics in each. From the early years of the twentieth century until the 1930s, private initiative was in sole control, and state regulation was weak. Moreover, this was a period when firms generating electricity for their own use, like the mining companies, were just as important as those producing for public consumption. From the 1930s onwards, as a result of the impact of the Great Depression on Chile, the private sector, which had a large foreign component, proved incapable of sustaining the investment required, and the state became the dominant body in the industry. The chapter analyses the proposals that the technocrats then coming to the fore were making about the restructuring of the electricity industry. In this second stage, ENDESA, the public-sector electricity supplier, became the most dynamic actor, leading to a much higher rate in installed capacity, although Chilectra, the major supplier to the cities in the centre of the country, remained in private (foreign) hands until 1970, when it became a subsidiary of CORFO.