The national government, through the Ministry of Economy, made a new step this Friday in the controversial energy privatization process by pre-awarding the sale of four key hydroelectric plants in Comahue. Through Resolution 2059/2025, the Executive branch approved the offers from private consortia for the Alicurá, El Chocón, Cerros Colorados, and Piedra del Águila plants for a combined amount of over USD 700 million, a process that now moves towards the contract signing in Cipolletti on December 22. Critics of the process state that the sale of hydroelectric assets adds to years of public policies that favored private participation in strategic sectors, under the argument of efficiency and financing, but left a legacy of deregulation, lower public investment, and higher energy costs for users. They also warn that the divestment of these complexes from state ownership may limit the country's ability to plan its energy matrix in the long term, affecting energy sovereignty and water resource management. Spokespeople for the ruling party, in turn, defend the decision to proceed with the pre-award and the participation of experienced companies in the sector, such as Central Puerto, Edison, and BML, arguing that it is about leveraging the productive potential of the assets, boosting the regional economy, and attracting capital that will drive the modernization of the plants. The signing of the contracts in Cipolletti, scheduled for next Monday, December 22, will mark a defining chapter in this process, which has already put the privatization of assets considered strategic for national development at the center of public debate. The El Chocón complex, for example, located on the Limay River between Neuquén and Río Negro, has an installed capacity of over 1,200 megawatts, representing a significant portion of Argentina's total hydroelectric energy. Built mostly by the former state company Hidronor S.A., which operated from 1967 to 1993, these plants came to represent over 40% of the country's electricity generation before their first privatization in the 1990s.
