Energy assistance programs in Ibero-America and their adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic

Ibero-America, a region with high levels of pre-existing poverty, has been considerably affected by the pandemic. Several regulatory measures have been implemented to provide additional financial assistance to the population. Due to the significant fiscal expenditure involved in universal subsidies, several countries have decided to target resources to the most vulnerable sectors. However, the literature focused on these targeted subsidies and beneficiary selection mechanisms is scarce. This article presents a descriptive review of the targeted subsidies implemented in eight Ibero-American countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, the targeting mechanisms, and the modifications made to pre-existing subsidies to adapt them to the health crisis. The research was conducted with the support of regulators from the countries studied and demonstrates that the Ibero-American regulatory response is in line with measures implemented internationally. By showing a catalog of regulatory measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article is relevant for policymakers to face future health crises and any scenario that forces the population to be confined in their homes, including extreme weather events.


Introduction
In December 2019, China's Wuhan province experienced an unusual outbreak of pneumonia cases [1]. The WHO named this disease COVID-19 in February 2020 [2], and on March 11, 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 was recognized as a global pandemic [3]. It was quickly discovered that the transmission of COVID-19 occurs through liquid particles expelled by infected people when coughing, sneezing, breathing, or talking [4]. Hence, most governments worldwide rushed to promote social distancing and restricted domestic and international travels to reduce the impact of COVID-19 [5]. In the most severe cases, partial or total lockdowns were imposed, prohibiting citizens from leaving their homes. This situation led to the closure of schools, universities, businesses, and entire sectors of the economy [6].
This paralysis of commercial and industrial activities led to a devastating economic recession unprecedented in modern history and put the global economy into "hibernation" [7], which caused massive job destruction and, in turn, exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities in the social system, especially among the poorest and those who are informally employed [6]. In its "June 2020 Global Economic Prospect" report [8], the World Bank indicated that the economic crisis associated with COVID-19 would be the fourth deepest global recession since 1870 and the most severe since the end of World War II. The International Labour Organization (ILO), in its "World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2021" [9], stated that 114 million people worldwide lost their jobs due to the pandemic. This sharp decline in jobs occurred within weeks of the first cases, and by April 2020, millions of people had lost their jobs [10]. In the U.S., the unemployment rate in April 2020 reached 14.8%, the highest observed since 1948 [9]. The World Bank estimated that the COVID-19 pandemic pushed between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty by 2020 [11]. Guy Rider, Director-General of ILO, indicated that poverty levels returned to those observed in 2015 [12].
Given the specific characteristics of this crisis, the reduced average household income due to higher unemployment rates added to people spending more time at home, which considerably increased the amount of electricity bills. The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its "Global Energy Review 2020" [13], indicated that "in the last week of March and the first week of April, residential demand during the week was up to 40% higher across certain European economies than in the same weeks in 2019". Krarti and Adlubyan [13] noted that residential consumption in the U.K. increased by 17% during business hours [14]; in Ireland, residential consumption increased by an average of 11%, with areas increasing by more than 20% [15]; and in Austin, Texas, residential consumption increased by 31.88% in April 2020 compared to the last week of February 2020 [16]. In Australia, residential demand increased by 14% during 22-28 March (post-lockdown) compared to 1-7 March (pre-lockdown) [17].
This complex scenario, which combines lower household income and higher energy expenditure, puts millions of people in the world at risk of energy poverty [18] at a time when the population is highly dependent on electricity for teleworking [19,20] and distance learning [21] activities. This condition forced the authorities and regulators to decree measures to ensure electricity supply to the population. The most popular measure adopted worldwide was the prohibition of the disconnection of electricity supply for non-payment [22,23], which was applied to the entire population in most countries. In addition, some countries have opted to allocate funds exclusively to the most vulnerable sectors of the population. These targeted subsidies, which in some jurisdictions were created temporarily and, in others, were expanded or modified from pre-existing programs to incorporate new households affected by the pandemic, have been called "energy assistance programs" in the literature [22,24,25]. This paper describes the energy assistance programs implemented by 8 Ibero-American countries, whose purpose is to provide financial support to the most vulnerable sectors of the population to ensure their electricity supply during the health crisis. This objective is achieved by reviewing decrees, laws, regulations, resolutions, ordinances, and agreements enacted to gather the characteristics and details of energy assistance programs implemented, identifying the benefits, modifications that programs underwent due to the pandemic, and beneficiary targeting mechanisms of these programs.
This review and its analysis are relevant not only because of the extended duration of the current health crisis and the threat of the emergence of new coronavirus variants. As Mastropietro (2022) [24] indicated, the experience in the implementation of regulatory measures aimed at ensuring electricity supply is of interest to regulators and policymakers due to the increasingly frequent extreme weather events that can produce quarantine-like experiences, such as people spending more time at home, higher electricity bills, and increased vulnerability in case of disconnection.
This article is structured as follows. Section 2 presents a review of energy assistance programs. Section 3 details the research methodology implemented to gather information on energy assistance programs oriented to customers with electricity vulnerability in Ibero-America. Section 4 presents a historical context of Ibero-America before and during the pandemic, characterized by the rapid spread of COVID-19 and a deep economic recession. Section 5 presents a classification of the energy assistance programs implemented in Ibero-America, detailing their benefits, beneficiaries, changes that the pre-existing programs underwent because of the pandemic, and beneficiary targeting mechanisms. Section 6 concludes.

International literature review
Due to the confinement measures, new behavior patterns considerably modified the electricity demand profiles, with demand reductions, displacement of consumption peak hours [26,27], and changes in the energy mix used to generate energy [28][29][30][31]. Academics and researchers quickly became interested in the operation of the electricity system under these new conditions, especially in the consequences of the electricity demand reduction [7][8][9][10], the impact on the development of renewable energy projects [36][37][38][39][40], and in the technical and economic challenges faced by the companies involved in electricity supply [29,41,42]. However, although several countries worldwide have relied on some form of subsidy to reduce the economic impact of electricity consumption on the families most affected by the pandemic, few articles have studied the regulatory measures enacted by governments and regulatory institutions to guarantee electricity supply and alleviate the financial burden on households during the pandemic. Within the few papers that have studied these regulatory measures, most have focused on measures of universal application, which involve excessive fiscal expenditure, and have paid limited attention to targeted subsidies and aid programs that provide financial assistance exclusively to the most vulnerable sectors. For this reason, documentation on the beneficiary selection mechanisms of these targeted subsidies is also scarce in the academic literature. Existing literature also fails to identify how pre-existing programs were adapted to the health crisis, which is crucial for reacting to future contingencies with consequences similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. This section reviews previous research focusing on identifying targeted subsidies, targeting mechanisms, and adaptations of pre-existing programs to the COVID-19 health crisis.
One of the main contributions to this topic is the research conducted by Mastropietro, Rodilla, and Batlle (2020) [22], in which they presented a taxonomy of regulatory interventions made during the pandemic in the electricity sector in several countries and classified them into six categories: prohibition of disconnection of electricity service, deferment of electricity bill payment, creation and improvement of energy assistance programs, reduction or cancellation of electricity bills, support measures for commercial and industrial users, and support measures for companies in the electricity supply chain. Within the category of creation and improvement of energy assistance programs, the paper mentions the extension of deadlines for renewing subscriptions to existing energy assistance programs, increasing the financial assistance given to each beneficiary, and increasing the number of beneficiaries to include families facing economic hardship due to the pandemic.
In a related paper, Qarnain, Muthuvel, and Bathrinath (2020) [25] reviewed the measures implemented by G20 member countries during the COVID-19 pandemic to secure electricity supply. Among these countries, the measures adopted in Germany and Indonesia can be considered energy assistance programs: Germany allowed the suspension of payment of electricity, water, gas, telephone, and internet bills until June 30, 2020, for those clients who had suffered a decrease in their income [43]; and Indonesia announced that the poorest households would receive free electricity and discounts to help them cope with the economic crisis [44]. Similarly, Akrofi and Antwi [45] examined the regulatory response of the electricity sector in Africa. In addition to presenting a large number of universal measures aimed at providing electricity, water, and food in Africa, the paper mentions several energy assistance programs, such as the exemption of 174,707  [24] examined the different emergency measures implemented in Spain to ensure the population's electricity supply and identified the changes made to respond to the health crisis. Regarding energy assistance programs, Spain approved in 2019 a national strategy to combat energy poverty. This program consists of different discounts on electricity bill prices and charges, according to the degree of vulnerability of the household and the number of inhabitants. Due to the pandemic, this program was modified to provide additional help to consumers: the deadline for renewing enrollment was postponed, the category of self-employed whose activity was reduced by the pandemic was added, and the employability criterion was modified to include unemployed and employees whose working hours were reduced by the pandemic [24].
Hesselman (2021) [46] presented emergency measures undertaken by governments, regulators, and utilities to ensure energy availability in homes during the pandemic and thus mitigate energy poverty, and is the first work identified that focuses on beneficiary selection mechanisms. The study included 120 countries and more than 380 measures reviewed, which are generally aimed at residential customers. Among the measures to support the most vulnerable sectors of the population, this work identified the provision of free energy, discounts on the total amount of the electricity tariff, and the provision of money in the form of a one-time payment or monthly payments. The typical beneficiaries of this type of assistance were users previously identified as vulnerable. However, another mechanism for selecting beneficiaries consisted of allocating these subsidies according to family income, family size, employment status, health status, or disability. Also, some benefits were given to customers whose consumption was within certain consumption bands or below certain thresholds.
Concerning international reports, several institutions reacted quickly to COVID-19 but paid little attention to regulatory measures aimed at securing electricity supply. In 2020, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) published its report "COVID-19 and the electricity sector in Latin America and the Caribbean" [47]. The report summarizes the measures adopted by the region's countries to ensure electricity supply, highlighting payment exemptions, tariff reductions, payment deferrals, and the prohibition of cutting off electricity service for non-payment. This is the only report reviewed that explicitly references energy assistance programs and suggests favoring "policies that offer support to the most vulnerable groups of the population" and emphasizes that universal subsidies "have a high impact on public finances." The report reviews different measures applied in Ibero-America and the type of user the support measure is intended for. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) analyzed the Latin American support policies for small and medium-sized enterprises to face the pandemic [48], reviewed the residential electricity sector tariffs and the macroeconomic effects of the pandemic on the sector [49], and prepared a sectoral energy plan for the Central American Integration System (SICA) to propose measures to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the energy sector [50]. Finally, in May 2020, the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE) published an analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the energy sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. It analyzed the impact on electricity demand and supply, power consumption and generation projections, and CO 2 emissions projections, without references to regulatory measures [51]. The categories of regulatory measures identified in this review are summarized in Table 1.
As mentioned above, previous works have focused primarily on the benefits delivered by energy assistance programs and have paid little attention to the targeting mechanisms and the modifications that have been made to these programs to react to the COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of benefits delivered and targeting mechanisms. This reduces the usefulness of these works to future scenarios similar to COVID-19 but in lesser magnitude. Thus, the main contributions of this paper include: (i) a classification of the energy assistance programs identified, considering benefits delivered, beneficiary selection mechanisms, and their adaptation to the pandemic; (ii) a review of the energy assistance programs implemented in Ibero-America during the COVID-19 pandemic, a region scarcely documented in the academic literature; and (iii) the implementation of a novel methodology to search for relevant documentation that includes the participation of regulators in the countries studied.

Materials and methods
Data was gathered from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021. It included 22 Ibero-American ARIAE member countries on the measures implemented in the electricity sector to address the COVID-19 crisis, not only energy assistance programs. The search methodology consisted of five stages: (a) online search, (b) design of questionnaires for regulators, Table 1 Benefits, beneficiaries and modifications of energy assistance programs.

Category
Regulatory measures Ref.

Energy assistance program benefits
Reduction or suspension of electricity bill [25,45,46] Delivery of cash in the form of a onetime payment or monthly payments [46] Discount on residential renewable energy projects [45] Beneficiary targeting mechanisms Beneficiaries of other social assistance programs [46] According to family size and household income [46] According to unemployment situation [46] According to health status or disability [46] According to monthly electricity consumption [46] Adaptation of pre-existing programs to the pandemic Increase in financial assistance provided [22] Increase in the number of beneficiaries [22,24] Extension of program subscription renewal deadlines [22,24]  (c) initial validation of the information collected through the questionnaires, (d) updating of the information, and (e) final validation through reports for regulators. This paper presents the results of this research exclusively concerning energy assistance programs. The details of each stage of the search methodology are presented below (see Fig. 1).
First, most measures, not just energy assistance programs, were identified through an online search using the major Internet search engines. This search was conducted in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan, and the information was extracted from the websites of regulators, congresses, and assemblies. Specifically, were reviewed the Diário Oficial da União of the Government of Brazil [52], the Agencia de Regulación y Control de Energía y Recursos Naturales No Renovables of Ecuador [53], the Diario Oficial Bicentenario: El Peruano, of Peru [54], the "Portal Oficial" of the Government of Puerto Rico [55], the website "Gobierno Digital" [56] of Dominican Republic, the Butlletí Oficial del Principat d'Andorra publications [57] of Andorra, the Secretaría de Estado de Energía [58] of Spain, and the Diário da República Electrónico [59] of Portugal. At this stage, it was possible to identify the measures, beneficiaries, benefits, and conditions for accessing the benefits of the implemented measures.
The second stage consisted of designing a digital questionnaire with 136 questions on the policies implemented in the electricity sector during COVID-19 to be sent to each of the regulators in the 22 countries participating in the study. Due to the time it would take for the regulators to collect all the necessary information, these questionnaires were pre-answered using the information collected in the first stage. Thus, 22 different pre-answered questionnaires were generated for each country and sent individually to each regulator for validation and completion. After several weeks, 14 of the 22 regulators validated their respective pre-answered questionnaires. The rest of the regulators did not send their validation at this intermediate stage but only validated the final report at the end of the process.
In the third stage, the responses to the questionnaires and the new information provided by the regulators were compiled. This made it possible to update the information gathered in the first stage. The contribution of the regulators was mainly information about reforms to the regulations identified in the first stage due to the speed at which the measures were changing and the validation of the information collected in the first stage. In the fourth stage, 22 reports were generated with the regulatory measures of each country, which were sent again to each country's regulators for final validation. For the eight countries that did not validate the third stage questionnaire, the information collected in the first stage was supplemented with a new online search. The fifth and final stage consisted of validating the results based on the reports generated in the fourth stage and sent to the 22 regulators. This final stage concluded with a presentation of the results in a webinar organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on October 6, 2021, attended by ARIAE and the regulators participating in the study.
Developing the pre-answered questionnaires saved time for the regulators, who did not have to answer a questionnaire but only validated the information collected and supplemented it if necessary. Thus, this validation process took between 4 and 8 weeks, which is considerable considering the speed at which measures were updated and modified during the pandemic. However, this research aims to descriptively present the spectrum of measures implemented rather than to present the regulatory dynamics and their evolution concerning the severity of the pandemic. Concerning the search methodology and the consultation with regulators, it is most useful when studying regulatory frameworks with low dynamism. In emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, regulations are reformed several times in short periods, and information is updated very quickly, so there could be several modifications during the time it takes the regulator to respond to the questionnaire. This paper presents the results of this research concerning the energy assistance programs applied in the region during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the 22 countries studied, only 8 applied this measure: Andorra, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Puerto Rico, Portugal, and Spain.

Impact of COVID-19 on unemployment and electricity demand in Ibero-America
Before presenting the analysis of the energy assistance programs implemented in Ibero-America, this article reviews the economic situation in the region during the COVID-19 crisis. In Ibero-America, one of the first countries to report coronavirus cases was Spain, where the first wave of infections left about 900 deaths per day [24]. In Latin America, the first reported case of COVID-19 was in Brazil on February 26, 2020 [60]. Less than a month later, all countries in the region reported infections. The first COVID-19 death was reported in Argentina on March 7, 2020 [61], and by April 6, 2020, all Latin American countries had reported COVID-19 deaths [62]. Due to the rapid spread of the virus, the countries of the region rushed to enact measures to curb the first wave of contagions: Peru was the first country to decree a mandatory quarantine on March 15 [63], which implied the closure of all borders and the prohibition of domestic travel within the country [64]. The next countries to adopt mitigation measures were Ecuador and Chile, which declared a "state of emergency" on March 16 [65] and 18 [66], respectively. In Chile, the political parties and the Electoral Service agreed on March 19 to postpone the constitutional referendum -initially scheduled for April 16, 2020-to October 25, 2020, due to the rapid expansion of COVID-19 [67]. Brazil closed its land borders on March 19 [68]. Argentina imposed a mandatory quarantine on March 20 [69], and by October 5, 2020, Argentina reached a positivity rate of 60%, the highest in the world [70]. The Dominican Republic established a national curfew on March 20 [71], and face masks became mandatory in public spaces and workplaces on April 16 after registering 3755 cases of COVID-19 and 196 deaths [72]. Bolivia decreed a state of sanitary emergency after March 25, 2020 [73].
At the time of writing this article, South America is the region with the worst records of COVID-19 in the world: since records of deaths from this disease have been officially reported, South America has had 2740 deaths per million inhabitants, followed by the U.S. with 2450, Europe with 2000, and Asia with 267 deaths [74]. The maximum number of daily deaths throughout the pandemic also occurred in South America, with an average of 10.85 per million inhabitants in April 2021 [74]. However, by the end of 2021, South America had the highest vaccination rates, with 63.4% of its population fully inoculated, followed by Europe with 60.5% [74,75].
The exponential growth in the number of infected people in the region caused governments to rush to enact emergency measures, such as border closures, states of emergency, school closures, and mandatory quarantines [73]. These measures, which effectively decelerated the spread of COVID-19, allowed the relaxation of quarantines by the end of the first half of 2020 in the region [76][77][78][79]. However, these severe containment measures caused the closure of entire sectors of the economy, which considerably impacted unemployment rates. This section reviews the impact of containment measures on economic indicators in Ibero-American countries, considering unemployment rates and GDP per capita. As a result of the close connection between economic activity and electricity demand [80], the shutdown of commercial and industrial activities drastically reduced the net electricity consumption. This section then reviews the reduction in electricity demand in some Ibero-American countries.

Impact on the economy and unemployment rates in Latin-America
According to the ECLAC in its "Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean" report [81], the Latin American and Caribbean region suffered the worst contraction in economic activity in more than a century due to the pandemic, with a 6.8% drop in the regional GDP and a 7.7% drop in the GDP per capita. Similarly, the region recorded the most significant drop in employability globally, with a contraction of 9%, implying an increase in the unemployment rate of 2.5% points [81]. This complex economic situation further impacted the historically vulnerable sectors of the region. According to ECLAC, extreme poverty has reached its worst levels in the last 20 years [82], and women's labor conditions have regressed by more than a decade concerning the progress achieved in labor participation before the pandemic [83].
At the country level, on August 3, 2020, The Central Bank of Chile reported that economic activity fell by 12.4% in June 2020 compared to the same month of 2019 [84]. According to ECLAC in its "Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean" [85], Chile's annual growth during 2020 was − 6%. To address the economic crisis triggered by the healthcare crisis, Chile's Congress approved the exceptional withdrawal, up to three times, of citizens' pension funds [86], in addition to bonuses [87] and stimulus packages [88]. Colombian economy contracted − 7% during 2020 [85] and registered the highest unemployment rate among OECD countries in July 2020: 19.7%, higher than Greece (17%) and Spain (15.8%) [89]. Peru experienced the most significant increase in unemployment, rising from 3.4% in 2019 to 7.5% in 2020 [90]. In addition, Peru's GDP contracted by − 12.9%, a much more significant decrease than the − 7.7% drop in the region [85]. According to Mexico's statistical agency, Mexico's economy contracted by − 8.5% in 2020, the most significant drop since 1932, according to this country's statistical agency [91], and 12 million people had lost their jobs as of April 2020 [92]. In Europe, Cafira et al. (2022) [93] indicated that the countries most dependent on tourism, transport, and logistics would be the most affected. In Spain, unemployment at the end of 2020 was 15.67%, according to World Bank data [90], and the year-on-year variation of GDP recorded a − 21.6% drop in the second quarter of 2020 [24]. Portugal recorded an unemployment rate in 2020 of 6.79%, compared to 6.46% in 2019 [90].

Impact on net electricity consumption
The stoppage of certain activities due to social distancing and confinement measures was quickly reflected in the net electricity consumption of different countries. While residential consumption increased due to the increased amount of time people spent in their homes [33,94,95], commercial and industrial consumption decreased considerably due to the shutdown of these activities [96][97][98][99]. Thus, the magnitude of the decrease in electricity demand for each country depends on the severity of the confinement measures and the proportion of residential, industrial, and commercial consumption, which changes from country to country [23].
In Portugal, the state of emergency was decreed from March 18 to May 2, and electricity consumption was reduced by − 12% and − 13.2% in April and May, respectively, compared to the same months in 2019 [100]. In Spain, the government decreed confinement measures in March 2014. Between March 14 and April 30, electricity consumption decreased by − 13.49% compared to the average of the last five years in the same period [26]. In Brazil, electricity demand in the entire power system experienced a − 15% reduction when comparing the average before and after implementing the confinement measures [97]. In Colombia, electricity consumption increased by the first two months of 2020 by 5% and 8% compared to 2019. However, a quarantine was decreed by the end of March 2020, and the reduction in demand in April and May was − 12% and − 8%, respectively, compared to the same months in 2019 [100]. The Energy Hub [101], an initiative led by IDB, presents data on the variation in electricity demand in several Latin American Countries. Based on these data [101], the variations for Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, and Panama, all varying magnitude due to differences in the severity of confinement measures, are shown in Fig. 2. Peru suffered an abrupt drop in electricity consumption, which started to recover approximately seven months after the social distancing measures were enacted. Chile experienced a less drastic reduction in demand than Peru. Even in October 2020, the demand increased concerning the same month in the previous year due to social protests in October 2019, which brought the Chilean economy to a month-long standstill. Brazil also experienced an abrupt drop in its electricity demand but a rapid recovery compared to the other countries studied. Brazil even increased its electricity consumption as of August 2020 compared to the previous year. Similarly, in Bolivia, electricity demand fell sharply at the beginning of the confinement measures due to the pandemic. As of October 2020, this demand recovered without pre-pandemic demand levels. Finally, Colombia and Panama only recovered their pre-pandemic electricity demand levels for a short period between October and November 2020.
This unprecedented situation in Latin America, with historic unemployment rates and completely paralyzed sectors of the economy, has forced the authorities to decree emergency measures. The objective of these measures is to ensure electricity supply, as it has become essential both for the vulnerable population that has difficulties paying for the service and for the population whose jobs have been adapted to teleworking and require electricity to carry out their productive work. The following section reviews the energy assistance programs implemented in Ibero-America. Although all countries decreed emergency measures to ensure electricity supply, only eight implemented or modified energy assistance programs.

Financial assistance programs for vulnerable customers in Ibero-America
Many jurisdictions across the globe had energy assistance programs in place long before the pandemic. These programs generally aim to reduce the monthly expenditure of vulnerable households on electricity and heating. The pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis harmed these sectors of society and put broader social groups at risk of energy vulnerability. This situation forced governments to increase the assistance provided and to include the new population affected by the pandemic in these programs. This section reviews of the energy assistance programs implemented in Ibero-America during the COVID-19 pandemic. Firstly, a taxonomy of the types of energy assistance programs identified in Ibero-America is presented. Secondly, the significant modifications to energy assistance programs that existed before the pandemic to adapt to the new emergency are analyzed. The section ends by reviewing the mechanisms used by the different programs studied to select the beneficiaries. The sources of information used in this review are official decrees, laws, ordinances, resolutions, regulations, norms, agreements, and circulars. These Ibero-American programs, both the ones that existed prior to the pandemic and those created as a response to the pandemic, are shown in Fig. 3.

Programs aimed at customers with electricity vulnerability in Ibero-America
The energy assistance programs identified in Ibero-America can be classified into three categories according to the type of assistance they provide: (a) delivery of bonuses or subsidies, (b) application of preferential rates, and (c) discounts on the total amount of the electric bill.
The delivery of bonuses or subsidies consists of a monetary contribution for the most vulnerable households to pay their electricity bills through the delivery of a one-time payment, either to pay future electric bills or to finance overdue payments. Andorra had an energy poverty campaign to benefit vulnerable residential customers who cannot afford electricity bills. The program provided debt financing and assistance with electricity bill payments and prohibited electricity companies from cutting off electricity supply without a prior social assessment [57]. With the onset of the pandemic, Andorra facilitated access to this program by simplifying procedures. Puerto Rico provided financial support for paying for electric energy to customers, depending on the degree of vulnerability, through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The cash grant is a one-time payment sent directly to the utility company provider to be credited on the bill. The amount depends on the family's income and the number and age of the family's members, up to a maximum of US$900. The beneficiaries were families living below 150% of the poverty level established by the Administration for Children and Families or persons benefiting from the TANF or PAN programs [55,102,103]. Similarly, but with a focus on users' debts, Peru created the "Bono electricidad," which consists of a one-time exceptional grant of a monetary subsidy of up to S/160 to pay the electricity bill of residential customers with pending payments between March 2020 and December 2020 [54].
Preferential electricity tariffs consist of a differentiated electricity price for specific population sectors. In Ecuador, the "Tarifa de la dignidad" assigns a reduced tariff of USD 0.04/kWh -less than half the average rate of the rest of the country-for residential customers in the Sierra region with monthly consumption of less than 110 kWh/month; and for residential customers in the Coast, East, and Galapagos regions with monthly consumption of less than 130 kWh/month [104]. In the Dominican Republic, the "Bono luz" was assigned to people in extreme and moderate poverty. This program assigns a preferential rate of RD $3.28 per kWh, up to a maximum of 150 kWh per month, to customers whose average consumption does not exceed 125 kWh/month between March 2019 and February 2020 and no more than 150 kWh/month of average consumption in the summer months [56].
Finally, Brazil, Spain, and Portugal applied discounts on the total amount of the electricity tariff, which reduced the total amount of the electricity bill by a certain percentage. Brazil had a social electricity tariff, whose beneficiaries were families with a monthly per capita family income of less than or equal to half the national minimum wage, families over 65 years of age, families with a member with a disability or illness, and indigenous families. The tariff offered discounts on the monthly consumption bill of the beneficiary families: a 65% discount for consumption less than or equal to 30 kWh/month, a 40% discount for consumption between 31 kWh/month and 100 kWh/month, and 10% discount for consumption between 101 kWh/month and 220 kWh/ month. Indigenous families had higher discounts: a 100% discount for consumption of less than 50 kWh/month and a 40% discount between 51 kWh/month and 100 kWh/month [105]. Similarly, Spain's energy vulnerability program called "Bono social" offered bill discounts of 25% and 40% for vulnerable and severely vulnerable consumers, respectively. However, exceptionally, until April 30, 2022, the discount was 60% and 70%, respectively [106]. Finally, Portugal's social electricity tariff provided a 33.8% pre-tax rebate on electricity bills for low-income customers with up to 6.9 kVA of contracted power [107]. A graphical summary of the categories of energy assistance programs identified is shown in Fig. 4.

Changes, extensions, and creation of new electricity vulnerability programs as a result of the pandemic
As a result of the pandemic, preexisting programs with benefits for vulnerable customers were improved, expanded, or used as a reference to create others to provide financial assistance to the new vulnerable population and to mitigate the effects of the increase in electricity consumption caused by the general confinement. Typical modifications to the preexisting energy assistance programs in Ibero-America, which are in line with global improvements according to the international review conducted, were: (a) the improvement of the monetary contributions provided, (b) the creation of new categories to benefit the new population made vulnerable, (c) the modification of the monthly electricity consumption limits, and (d) the simplification of the benefits application process.
Regarding the improvement of the monetary assistance provided, in Brazil, the benefits of the electric energy social tariff program were extended to offer discounts of 100% of the payment of the electric energy bill for consumption of less than 220 kWh/month between April 1, 2020, and June 30, 2020 [52]. Spain increased, exceptionally, the discount applied to the electricity bill for vulnerable (25% discount originally) and severely vulnerable (40% discount initially) customers to 60% and 70%, respectively [106]. In Portugal, consumers who met the social electricity tariff eligibility conditions benefited from a unique and unrepeatable extraordinary monetary support for each day of confinement, up to a maximum of 30 days, regardless of the contracted tariff option. Each customer's contracted power determines the amount of support, ranging from €0.02/day for customers with a contracted power of 1.15 kVA to €0.15/day for customers with a contracted power of 6.9 kVA [59] (see Table 1).
In Spain, a new category of vulnerable consumers was added to the "Bono social" program to include the new population made vulnerable by the confinement measures, corresponding to unemployed customers and self-employed customers who have ceased their activity or have seen their income reduced by an average of 75% concerning the previous semester as a result of COVID-19 [106]. In Andorra, application to the programs was made more accessible: access to the Energy Poverty Campaign program was facilitated, and the procedures that customers must complete to enter the program were simplified [57]. Finally, Ecuador modified the consumption limits, and the beneficiaries who eventually increased their electricity consumption could continue paying for the service at the same rate despite exceeding the maximum limits established to benefit from the subsidy [53]. The modifications made to the energy assistance programs to adapt them to COVID-19 are graphically summarized in Fig. 5. A summary of the characteristics of the energy assistance programs presented is shown in Table 2.

Targeting mechanisms applied to electricity vulnerability programs for the delivery of benefits
In contrast to universal subsidies, energy assistance programs focus on the population's most vulnerable sectors. For this reason, they require selection mechanisms to ensure proper targeting and thus allocate resources to the population that needs them. Different countries and different energy assistance programs use different targeting mechanisms. In the Latin American countries examined for this study, benefits were commonly granted considering the monthly electricity consumption of customers. Thus, benefits are assigned to customers whose consumption is below a certain threshold, as in the cases of Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Peru. In Brazil, the discount applied to the electricity bill was assigned based on electricity consumption up to 220 kWh/month [52]. In the Dominican Republic and Ecuador, a  [ 59,107] preferential rate was applied for electricity consumption below 150 kWh/month [56] and 130 kWh/month [104], respectively. In Peru, pending payments were financed for residential users whose average monthly electricity consumption is below 125 kWh/month [54].
Other countries select as beneficiaries those clients who belong to other social assistance programs, as in the case of Puerto Rico and Portugal. The Puerto Rico assistance program beneficiaries were families living below 150% of the poverty level established by the Administration for Children and Families or persons benefiting from the TANF or PAN programs [55,102,103]. In Portugal, those who received extraordinary monetary assistance were those users who benefited from the social electricity tariff. Finally, some countries have chosen to consider a reduction in monthly income as a selection mechanism. Spain allocated targeted assistance to clients who suffered a reduction in their monthly income due to the pandemic and the beneficiaries already participating in the Bono social [58,108]. Similarly, Andorra benefits only those consumers who prove that they cannot pay their electricity bill due to economic problems, for which a prior, mandatory, and binding social assessment by the ministry in charge of social care is required [57]. Fig. 6 presents a graphical summary of the selection mechanisms of the identified energy assistance programs.

Conclusion
To contain the spread of COVID-19, governments worldwide have implemented severe population containment measures. On the one hand, this situation led to the shutdown of commercial and industrial activities, which significantly increased unemployment rates and reduced monthly household income. On the other hand, it forced people to stay home, increasing electricity bill costs. These two situations created a complex scenario that put the most vulnerable sectors of society at risk of energy poverty. The authorities reacted quickly by decreeing measures such as the prohibition of disconnection of electric service for non-payment, reduction or cancellation of the electric bill, deferment of payment of the bill, and the creation or improvement of energy assistance programs aimed at ensuring the supply of electricity to the most vulnerable population. This article presented the energy assistance programs implemented in eight Ibero-American countries, identifying the types of assistance provided, the mechanisms for selecting beneficiaries, and the modifications that preexisting social assistance programs underwent to adapt to the health crisis associated with COVID-19.
This review identified three main types of financial assistance provided in Ibero-America: (i) a monetary contribution to the most vulnerable households to pay their electricity bill, (ii) preferential electricity tariffs for specific sectors of the population, and (iii) discounts applied to the total electricity bill. Some of these aids were created to support households during the pandemic, while others existed before. Of the preexisting programs prior to the pandemic, many were enhanced to provide more assistance. This review identified four typical modifications to react to the crisis: (i) an increase in the amount of cash assistance provided, (ii) the creation of new categories to include the new vulnerable population, (iii) modifications to the maximum consumption limits, and (iv) modifications to the application process, such as simplifications to the process and extension of deadlines for subscription renewal. As the subsidies were targeted, new and preexisting programs had to implement beneficiary selection mechanisms. The mechanisms identified in the countries studied were: (i) according to monthly electricity consumption, (ii) according to the reduction in monthly income, or (iii) if they were previously beneficiaries of social assistance programs. According to the international review conducted, the Ibero-American regulatory response, in terms of benefits delivered, modification of preexisting programs, and beneficiary selection mechanisms, is in line with measures implemented in other parts of the world. Implementing these energy assistance programs could be an efficient approach to address the pandemic or any confinement situation, as it allows taking advantage of targeting mechanisms to maximize the impact of the available resources. This is not possible by implementing universal subsidies, with higher fiscal expenditure and lower impact on the population. The flexibility of these programs also allows for rapid changes in benefits, beneficiaries, and requirements, which makes it possible to constantly adapt the programs to the changing conditions of the context. However, these programs require updated and reliable databases on the socioeconomic situation of the population in order to allocate resources correctly. Because not all countries have such data, different beneficiary selection mechanisms could be used.
Energy assistance programs could be helpful during pandemics and for any situation that produces quarantine-like experiences, such as people spending more time at home, higher electricity bills, and increased vulnerability in case of disconnection. In this context, the COVID-19 pandemic left several valuable lessons for future similar scenarios and energy assistance programs' design. First, COVID-19 demonstrated the importance of the flexibility of energy assistance programs, which were able to modify their requirements, benefits, and beneficiaries as pandemic conditions changed, all quickly and with few political procedures. Second, it demonstrated the need for targeting strategies for vulnerable clients, which requires extensive administrative efforts and constantly updated databases. Third, because the world was not prepared to face a pandemic, in some countries, measures were improvised and lacked funding, aggravating the liquidity problems of the supplying companies. This situation demonstrated the need for predeveloped regulatory frameworks that indicate how governments and companies should act in these exceptional situations of high risk of energy vulnerability. These frameworks should temporarily increase the authority of the energy institutions and indicate the forms of financing the emergency measures. Finally, all these aids provided to the population should be accompanied by information campaigns with clear indications on how to access these benefits and the procedures, which should be as simple as possible in confinement situations.
The study's main limitation was that it only considered national programs because they are better documented and accompanied by online information campaigns. Local programs, which only cover small counties or municipalities, are not always reported on the Internet or are generally known to regulators, making them difficult to access. Future research could consider local order programs and dynamic studies of the measures that highlight how the programs evolved as confinement measures were relaxed or became stricter. Finally, studies that determine the financial impact of these programs and the effectiveness of the financial assistance provided would be well received to improve the regulatory response to similar future containment scenarios.