Every month without final rules is a month viable projects sit frozen
Peru's new law opens energy services market to generators, distributors, and storage providers, but the implementing regulation is nearly a year overdue. Chile's established framework demonstrates how competitive auctions and three-tier planning can efficiently allocate storage services and ensure grid stability.
- Peru passed Law 32249 in January 2025 to create a complementary energy services market
- The implementing regulation was due 120 days later but wasn't published until April 19, 2026—nearly a year late
- Chile established its complementary services market framework over two decades, with key regulations in 2004, 2016, 2017, and 2019
- Starting in 2028, all new renewable plants in Peru must provide synthetic inertia, creating concrete demand for storage systems
Peru enacted Law 32249 to create a complementary energy services market, but regulatory implementation lags. Chile's two-decade experience offers a proven model for enabling grid stability through storage systems and competitive mechanisms.
Building a renewable energy system means more than installing solar panels and wind turbines. The harder part comes after sunset, when the panels go dark and the wind stalls. That's when the grid needs what engineers call complementary services—technical capabilities that keep electricity flowing smoothly and safely through the network. These services include frequency regulation, voltage support, and energy storage. Without them, a grid heavy on renewables becomes unstable, unreliable, and ultimately unusable.
Chile figured this out two decades ago. Starting in 2004, the country began weaving storage systems and complementary services into its legal framework. By 2016, it created the National Electric Coordinator, an institution that runs annual auctions and competitive bidding processes to allocate these services. The system evolved through additional regulations in 2017 and 2019, settling into a three-tier model: planners assess what services the grid will need each year, evaluate whether real competition exists among providers, and then pay those providers fairly for what they deliver. The architecture works because it treats storage systems and large electricity users as legitimate market participants, not afterthoughts.
Peru is now trying to follow Chile's path. In January 2025, Congress passed Law 32249, creating a complementary services market open to generators, transmission companies, distributors, large industrial users, and third-party storage providers. The law gave the Ministry of Energy and Mines 120 days to write the regulations that would make this market actually function. That deadline came and went. Nearly a year later, on April 19, 2026, the ministry finally released a draft regulation and gave the market 25 days to submit comments. Meanwhile, Peru's grid operator has already begun recognizing batteries in frequency regulation, and starting in 2028, all new renewable plants will be required to provide synthetic inertia—a technical service that only storage systems can reliably deliver. Demand is coming. The rules are not.
The pending regulation must address three things: what licenses and permits new storage providers need, how services get assigned and paid for, and how to guarantee actual competition rather than monopoly control. Chile's model offers a direct answer. Its coordinator looks at market conditions for each service every year and decides whether to allocate it through competitive auction or direct assignment. Peru could adapt this framework almost directly.
But regulation alone won't move projects from the drawing board to construction. Financiers need clear rules about how storage capacity gets recognized and credited. They need contracts written specifically for storage systems, not generic power purchase agreements. They need confidence that the transmission network can handle the new infrastructure. Chile's experience—hard-won lessons about battery degradation, regulatory risk, and specialized contracting—is a practical blueprint. It shows what makes storage projects bankable, what pitfalls to avoid, and how to structure deals that international lenders will actually fund.
Peru is not starting from nothing. The law exists. International banks are interested. Renewable projects in the region are already cost-competitive. The ministry has finally released the regulation draft. But every month without final, published rules is a month that viable projects sit frozen, waiting for clarity that never comes. The knowledge exists. The legal foundation exists. What remains is the unglamorous work of turning legislative intent into operational rules—the kind of thing that doesn't make headlines but makes or breaks an energy transition.
Notable Quotes
Each month without properly approved and published regulations is a month in which viable projects remain in limbo— Analysis in El Comercio
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Peru need to copy Chile's model? Can't they just build their own system from scratch?
Because Chile already spent twenty years learning what works and what doesn't. Peru could spend that same time making the same mistakes, or it could adapt a proven framework. The grid physics is the same in both countries.
What's the actual problem right now? The law passed. Why can't projects just start?
Because nobody knows the rules yet. A developer can't build a storage facility if they don't know what license they need, how they'll get paid, or whether the grid operator will even accept their power. That uncertainty kills financing.
So it's just bureaucratic slowness?
It's more than that. It's the gap between political will and operational reality. Congress can pass a law in a day. Writing regulations that actually work—that define markets, set prices, manage competition—takes months of careful work. Peru's ministry is doing it, but late.
What happens if they don't finish the rules soon?
Projects that are ready to build sit idle. Renewable energy keeps growing, but without storage, the grid becomes fragile. By 2028, new solar and wind plants will be legally required to provide services that only storage can give. If the market isn't ready by then, you have a collision.
Is Chile's model actually better, or just older?
It's better because it's competitive. Chile uses auctions to find the cheapest, most efficient providers. That drives innovation and keeps costs down. Peru's law allows for the same thing, but only if the regulations are written to enable it.