Renewable Energies in Argentina: The Challenge of Articulating the Energy Transition with the Economic Development Model

Abstract

The discussion about the effects of climate change on the environment and human life is one of the central issues on the global agenda. And one of the most relevant actions being implemented is the acceleration of energy transition processes based on a strong decarbonization process. However, is there a single way forward in the energy transition? How should it go through it in a peripheral country, semitechnologically dependent, with a chronic shortage of access to “cheap” and long-term financing for infrastructure projects, with an energy matrix with a high penetration of natural gas, and which has a marginal incidence in global GHG emissions? After making a historical journey through the Argentine energy matrix, through the different transitions carried out in the past, and through the various policies that have followed one another in recent decades to expand renewable energies, the chapter analyzes and presents alternatives on how to advance in the energy transition for a country with the aforementioned characteristics, based on the capture of economic resources from the energy system itself that allow financing the transition and meeting the ambitious climate goals to which the country has committed. In this sense, scenarios are presented on how capturing part of the oil revenue from the Vaca Muerta formation can become a driver to finance the increase in renewable energies in the national electricity matrix, which would allow restarting a process of energy transition that is currently paralyzed in the country.