Application process for electricity subsidy begins and Government proposes formulas to triple the number of benefited families

Statement from the Ministry of Energy of Chile

This is an automated translation of the press release issued in Spanish

This Monday, July 1, the application process for the electricity subsidy established in the Tariff Stabilization Law approved in April of this year began and the Government announced the presentation of a bill that would allow expanding the coverage of this benefit to all households belonging to 40% of the Social Household Registry, that is, more than 4.7 million households.

According to what was reported by the Minister of Energy Diego Pardow in the Palacio de La Moneda, the Government's proposal will also seek to increase the amount of the subsidy for those beneficiary households that belong to Medium Systems, located in the regions of Aysén, Magallanes and The Lakes; establish an additional subsidy for homes where electrodependent people live; and extend the delivery of the subsidy by one year with a gradual decrease until 2027.

The Secretary of State explained that the expansion of the subsidy will be financed based on three pillars: a temporary surcharge on the green carbon tax; an increase in the public service charge for the largest industrial consumers; and a greater fiscal contribution via the greater collection of VAT associated with the increase in electricity rates.

The collection objective that will make the announced measures viable is in the range of US$300 million and US$350 million annually. The proportion and form in which this contribution will be materialized will be determined through technical work carried out jointly with the Ministry of Finance.

“I want to highlight that these three pillars comply with what has been the Government's orientation regarding this type of policies. It is a self-contained system with fiscal responsibilities. “Those are the two principles with which we are working,” added the head of Energy.

Another announcement made by the government was a short reform to the supply regime for regulated customers, in order to allow regulated customers to buy energy from Small Distributed Generation Facilities (PMGD) and thus reduce the price. of energy.

“In terms of orders of magnitude, we expect that this reform will allow close to a 7% decrease in electricity rates starting next year,” added Pardow.

Work table with parliamentarians continues

Subsequently, the Minister of Energy went to the headquarters of the former National Congress in Santiago to participate in a new extraordinary session of the working group between the government and parliamentarians of the Mining and Energy Commissions to announce details of the proposal.

Along with answering the doubts of the parliamentarians present, an action plan was defined in the instance that will allow progress in the joint construction of the bill that will be submitted for processing no later than August 15.

In this way, an extraordinary meeting was scheduled for next Thursday, July 4, in which parliamentary advisors will participate, and the next one, on Monday, July 8, in which deputies and senators from the Mining and Energy commissions will be present, along with others. legislators who are participating in this instance.

Electrical subsidy application process begins

At 00:00 on July 1, the application process for the electricity subsidy began, which allows the most vulnerable households to access a discount on their electricity bills through the website Apoyoelectrico.cl. Until 4:00 p.m. this Monday, the number of applications exceeded 365 thousand.

To apply, you must belong to a household belonging to the 40% most vulnerable in the Social Household Registry and priority will be given to households that have at least one member subject to care, a person identified as a caregiver, or at least one adult/person. to older.

The application will be semi-annual and the results of this first process will be known in mid-September