Export of green hydrogen: Curse or blessing for the Chilean energy transformation

Abstract

As one of the countries with a geographically privileged location for renewable energy production, Chile has recognized its potential to develop a new export industry. The Chilean government has formulated an ambitious national green hydrogen strategy aiming at producing the world’s cheapest green hydrogen in 2030 and being one of the world’s three key green hydrogen exporters in 2040 (Ministry of Energy, 2020). Against this backdrop, Germany has already entered into a strategic partnership with Chile in 2019 in the context of achieving the ambitious climate neutrality targets by 2050. The focus of the partnership lies on policy dialogue, sharing “good” practices, driving innovation by fostering exchange and collaboration between the public and private sectors, and forms of communicating the energy transition to the broader public (Secretaría de la Energy Partnership Chile-Alemania, 2022). Yet, one of Chile’s major problems regarding energy are different forms of energy poverty which materialize in the use of wood for heating related to severe air pollution and health problems. Hence, the question arises how energy poverty related issues are addressed and negotiated in the German-Chilean energy partnership and in what way this is related to ‘hydrogen’ dreams of exporting the ‘green fuel’ to Europe?

Due to the energy transformation challenges Chile faces and the already longer-lasting partnership with Germany, it represents an excellent case study for analyzing the aforementioned question and the interrelations between global, national and local issues linked to the current energy transition. Glocal linkages are made clear by means of a qualitative content analysis of documents as well as ethnographic observations and interviews. Against the theoretical background of multiscale energy justice, we use, among others, the example of the switch from wood to electricity for heat generation in cities in the south of Chile due to extreme air pollution, to analyze how energy poverty is adressed, and what roles the international cooperations play in this context. Our findings show that particular cultural and social practices at a local level, as well as energy costs are key to opposition to energy transition policies, and thus, need to be considered. Hence, these results give important insights for policy making at different scales as well as what factors energy justice needs to consider.