In Latin America and the Caribbean, technical and non-technical losses in electricity systems exceed 15% on average of the total energy generated. These losses – associated with obsolete infrastructure, illegal disconnections and lack of smart metering – generate a cost for distribution companies that varies between 0.19% and 0.33% of regional GDP. In addition, these high levels of losses pose a challenge in terms of social equity, since the most vulnerable communities are the ones that suffer the most due to the low quality of electricity service, affecting the quality of service and the financial viability of utilities. While technical losses require investment in modern networks (e.g., superconducting cables, real-time monitoring systems), non-technical losses require social strategies: regularization of vulnerable users and energy culture campaigns.
