Chile’s president-elect José Antonio Kast has officially appointed Ximena Rincón González as Minister of Energy, as part of the cabinet that will take office on 11 March 2026.
The appointment follows weeks of speculation, including discussions around the possible creation of a so-called “tri-ministry” combining Energy, Economy and Mining. That option was ultimately ruled out, meaning the Energy Ministry will retain its institutional autonomy — a clear signal to the energy sector regarding the policy direction and governance framework the new government intends to pursue.
Rincón, currently a senator, will succeed Álvaro García, who had been leading the dual Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism, and Energy since October 2025. García took over following the resignation of Diego Pardow, amid a public controversy over errors in electricity tariff calculations that resulted in overbilling for consumers.
With this appointment, Rincón becomes the second woman to head Chile’s Energy Ministry, following Susana Jiménez Schuster, who held the post between March 2018 and June 2019 during the administration of Sebastián Piñera.
The decision reinforces Kast’s strategy of forming a coalition government, incorporating political sectors that supported him electorally and bringing in figures with extensive parliamentary experience and cross-party credentials.
Who is Ximena Rincón?
A lawyer trained at the University of Chile, Rincón is a senior political figure who played a key role within the former Concertación coalition. She served as Minister of Labour and later as Minister Secretary General of the Presidency during the second term of Michelle Bachelet.
In recent years, she consolidated her own political platform by founding and leading the Democrats party, which forged an alliance after the 2022 constitutional plebiscite and later enabled her to become President of the Senate.
Her political rapprochement with the right began with her support for Evelyn Matthei in the first round of the presidential election, followed by backing Kast in the 2025 run-off.
According to sources consulted by this outlet, figures within the incoming governing coalition value Rincón’s political profile and her ability to negotiate in Congress — seen as critical assets for a ministry facing a demanding agenda of technical reforms, regulatory modernisation and strong private-sector pressure for policy certainty.
Technical reform without subsidies and a market-driven focus
Kast’s energy agenda is built around a liberal, market-oriented approach. Its core pillars include consumer choice, the removal of bureaucratic barriers, the reorganisation of the PMGD (Small-Scale Distributed Generation) regime, and a modernisation of the power system without direct subsidies.
A central objective is to enable small consumers to actively participate in electrification, according to members of the campaign’s energy team. This involves a structural reform of electricity distribution, allowing for distributed generation and energy storage, while ensuring service quality and grid reliability.
The incoming administration supports the energy transition but warns that additional technical tools will be required to safeguard system stability without altering the existing legal framework. These include ancillary services, synchronous generation, inertia and short-circuit current capacity — all key elements for grid integration as renewable energy penetration increases.
One of the first major challenges will be a review of the PMGD framework, which has faced criticism for the extensive use of its transitional regime. Government officials argue that clearer rules and stronger operational coordination with the national power system are essential.
Overall, the model promoted by Kast explicitly rules out direct subsidies and prioritises technical efficiency as the main mechanism to reduce electricity tariffs and enhance security of supply. Whether these measures will be sufficient to meet the expectations of investors and market participants, however, remains to be seen.
