The Chilean government is looking to liberalize the retail electricity market to increase competitiveness and reduce the price of electricity for residential and small/medium commercial customers. Under this context, the article aims to enrich the legislative debate by providing an overview of the international experience of the electricity market liberalization that started in the early 1990s and presents forecasting for the regulated Chilean price until 2034, considering the current tenders and the price stabilization mechanism. In addition, multiple simulations are developed to measure the market effect of retail liberalization on regulated customers. In this regard, the results suggest a significant regulated price increase from 2022 to 2032, produced mainly by the stabilization mechanism, which overshadows the low prices obtained in recent renewable generation supply tenders. However, if the retail market is liberalized, the simulation indicates that regulated customers could save between 15% and 20% on their electricity bills.

The advancement of technology has significantly improved energy measurement systems. Recent investment in smart meters has enabled companies and researchers to access data with the highest possible temporal disaggregation, on a minute-by-minute basis. This research aimed to obtain data with the highest possible temporal and spatial disaggregation. This was achieved through a process of energy consumption measurements for six devices within seven houses, located in different communes (counties) of the Metropolitan Region of Chile. From this process, a data panel of energy consumption of six devices was constructed for each household, observed in two temporal windows: one quarterly (750,000+ observations) and another semi-annual (1,500,000+ observations). By applying a panel data econometric model with fixed effects, calendar-temporal patterns that help explain energy consumption in each of these two windows have been studied, obtaining explanations of over 80% in some cases, and very low in others. Sensitivity analyses show that the results are robust in a short-term temporal horizon and provide a practical methodology for analyzing energy consumption determinants and load profiles with panel data. Moreover, to the authors’ knowledge, these are the first results obtained with data from Chile. Therefore, the findings provide key information for the planning of production, design of energy market mechanisms, tariff regulation, and other relevant energy policies, both at local and global levels.