Constructing a SAMEA to analyze energy and environmental policies in Chile

Abstract

In this study, a social accounting matrix with environmental accounts (SAMEA) for Chile is built based on the 2016 input-output tables, socioeconomic household survey, expenditure survey, among other information sources. The SAMEA has high disaggregation of the electricity sector that is not currently available in national accounts. Complementary information on the operating costs of different electricity subsectors (thermoelectric, solar, wind, hydro, and biomass) from national and international studies are obtained. Then, intersectoral indicators, accounting multipliers, and simulations of shocks (subsidy on the non-conventional renewable energy subsectors and environmental taxes) are calculated. The main findings of the study show that each electricity subsector has different production technology and emission intensity. In consequence, energy and environmental policies simulated with intersectoral models that do not disaggregate the electricity sector would produce significant biases in the results.

KEYWORDS:

• Social accounting matrix
• input-output tables
• energy
• environment accounts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In Chile, electricity during 2016 was mostly produced by thermoelectric generators (63.3%), followed by hydroelectricity (26.4%), biomass (3.8%), solar (3.5%), and wind power (3.1%) (CNE, 2017a)

2 The Chilean Ministry of the Environment uses the compilation of emission factors from the US EPA to calculate its emission inventories since there are no estimates of emission factors at the national level.

3 https://www.thepmr.org/system/files/documents/Carbon%20Tax%20Developments%20in%20Chile.pdf

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica: [Grant Number Regular FONDECYT project no. 1191303].