Abstract

Chile has a law of distributed generation that came into effect in October 2014. Nevertheless, in the Aysén Region, which has solar resources similar to other areas with higher installation ratios, the first grid-connected photovoltaic system under this law was installed two years after it was enacted. In order to analyse the existing barriers to the implementation of photovoltaic technology in this area, a preliminary economic evaluation was conducted for this study after the first system installed in the region had been in operation for one year. In economic terms, the results reveal an unfavourable situation for the large-scale installation of these types of systems intended for home consumption compared to other areas of the country with similar radiation levels. We therefore suggest analysing options that consider multiple interrelated factors to be able to model scenarios with high penetration of local distribution grid-connected photovoltaic technology on a residential scale.