Una propuesta de focalización en tarifas energéticas: El Programa Energizar

Access to energy, in this case to a basic electricity service, is considered a human right as established in most countries’ National Constitution. High electricity costs are frequently seen as an obstacle to get energy access in the case of most vul-nerable households. In Argentina, the size of energy subsidies has been growing up to 2.8% of GDP in 2014. The substantial increase in energy tariffs that has occurred since 2016 brought down the weight of such subsidies to 1.1% of GDP in 2019, though it went up again to 2.2% of GDP in 2020 vis-à-vis a reduction in the level of energy tariffs. The purpose of this paper is to put forward a new mechanism for subsidies focalization which is more efficient to reduce the burden on the national budget while, at the same time, is socially fair to allow low-income consumer access to a basic electricity service. Combining both energy policy and social policies in Argentina, the authors suggest the implementation of the so-called Programa Energizar, which would be made of a fixed discount out of the monthly electricity bill of most vulnerable households. Such a discount would become effective through the use of the existing Tarjeta Alimentar, which is oriented towards the purchase of goods and services of low-income consumers. Any further saving in energy consumption could be used to smooth out seasonal variations in consumption and/or be used towards the purchase of additional goods and services, which would represent and incentive towards energy efficiency measures in vulnerable households