ARCONEL delegates the issuance of electrical environmental licenses to its Environmental Coordination office

The Electricity Regulation and Control Agency (ARCONEL) delegated to the head of its Environmental Coordination of the Electricity Sector the signing, issuance, and notification of environmental administrative authorizations, administrative acts, and technical pronouncements of the electricity sector. The measure is contained in Resolution No. ARCONEL-ARCONEL-2026-0034-RES, signed on October 19, 2026, by the acting Executive Director, Luis Fidel Lasso Ramos, and published in the Sixth Supplement No. 399 of the Official Registry on Wednesday, October 28, 2026.

The framework: from accreditation to delegation

The resolution is based on the accreditation that the Ministry of Environment and Energy granted to ARCONEL as the Competent Environmental Authority of the electricity sector at a national level through Resolution No. MAATE-MAATE-2025-0002-R of April 22, 2025, which also authorized it to use the seal of the Single Environmental Management System (SUMA). Added to this are the Organic Environmental Code, its Regulations, the Organic Administrative Code, and the Organic Law of the Public Electric Energy Service, as well as Executive Decree No. 256 of May 8, 2024.

The immediate justification was administrative: the Environmental Coordinator of the Electricity Sector requested the delegation through Memorandum No. ARCONEL-CASE-2026-0514-M of October 15, 2026, arguing the need to “optimize institutional management, reduce response times, avoid the concentration of administrative actions in the highest authority, and strengthen operational capacity.” The Legal Advisory Coordination supported the project through Memorandum No. ARCONEL-CJ-2026-0269-ME of the same day. The Executive Director had been appointed by the Board through Resolution ARCONEL-011/2026 of October 9, 2026.

What exactly is delegated

Article 1 of the resolution entrusts the head of the Environmental Coordination of the Electricity Sector with:

• The signing, issuance, and notification of environmental administrative authorizations.
• Administrative acts and technical pronouncements of the sector.
• Official letters, communications, and other documents necessary for the exercise of environmental regularization competencies.
• All actions required for the fulfillment of said competencies, within the limits of the current legal framework.

Article 2 further transfers the functions associated with the role of maximum environmental authority within the Single Environmental Information System (SUIA) of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, specifically in the environmental control and environmental regularization modules. In the Environmental Control module, the visualization of projects covered by Ministerial Agreement No. 074 will be enabled; in the Environmental Regularization module, the designation and enablement will be carried out with the corresponding profiles, roles, and access permissions.

Controls, responsibility, and entry into force

The text establishes obligations for the delegate and for the agency itself:

• The Environmental Coordination must notify the Ministry of Environment and Energy of the delegation for its implementation in the SUIA.
• The delegate will be responsible for their acts, actions, or omissions, and will act in accordance with the agency’s policies and the instructions of the maximum authority.
• A monthly report of the activities handled under this delegation must be submitted to the Executive Directorate.
• The Directorate of Document Management and Archive was tasked with the notification, socialization, and publication in the Official Registry.

The resolutive part clarifies that the delegation does not imply a transfer of the ownership of the competence nor does it exempt the authorities and public servants involved in its exercise from responsibilities. The resolution repealed in its entirety Resolution No. ARCONEL-ARCONEL-2026-0033-RES, also dated October 19, 2026, and entered into force upon its signing, without prejudice to its publication.

Impact for the sector

With this decision, the environmental licensing procedures for electricity generation, transmission, and distribution projects will now be resolved in a specialized technical unit rather than in the office of the Executive Director of ARCONEL, which aims to shorten the response times that electricity promoters face before the SUIA. The resolution maintains, however, the monthly supervision of the Executive Directorate and the control of the National Environmental Authority, such that administrative streamlining remains subject to internal accountability and current environmental regulations.

Source: Official Registry, Sixth Supplement No. 399, October 28, 2026, p. 2 (official reference: ARCONEL-ARCONEL-2026-0034-RES).