Chile

A consortium led by Abengoa and Acciona has commissioned a 110 MW concentrated solar power project, paired with 100 MW of PV, in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

New statistics from ACERA, the Chilean renewable energy association, show that solar covered around 12.9% of the country’s total electricity demand in March.

A Chilean startup is using solar energy to produce high-quality drinking water from the humidity in the air. The first plant is located in Chile, but there are plans in the works to expand to Colombia and Peru.

The Chilean Minister of Energy and Mining has announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to export green hydrogen to the Port of Rotterdam. The deal adds to the one signed with Singapore in early March to identify the best routes to reach Asian markets.

Ibereólica has submitted the project, set to be located in the Antofagasta region, to Chile’s environmental authorities for approval.

EDF and Oceanus plan to build a pumped hydro storage station and a desalination system powered by wind and solar. The system will use saltwater to produce hydropower during periods of high demand, while producing affordable freshwater.

Researchers from the Center for Solar Energy Technologies of Fraunhofer Chile have conducted a comparative analysis which shows that the lowest levelized cost of energy (LCOE ) in Chile can be achieved by a combination of large scale PV and concentrated solar power (CSP).

Taking a renewable energy project into its operational phase calls for several workstreams to be synchronized. The one that perhaps jumps out the most is permitting processes: correctly navigating the intricate and time-sensitive steps for licenses and permits. Regardless, each workstream calls for a different set of skills, and because of interlinked chicken-or-egg causality, it is difficult to say which single element is most important in a project’s development. However, there is an unsung element of the financial closing which has as much, if not more, impact on a project’s profitability than the cost of debt does: the underlying terms and conditions.

Fresh from the success of its 7.7 MW microgrid at Gold Fields’ Granny Smith mine in Western Australia, Aggreko has signed a 10-year contract with the global gold miner to install at 25.9 MW hybrid solar and thermal power solution at its Salares Norte mine site, located at a height of 4,500 meters in the Andes Mountains.

The country’s energy regulator will publish the auction’s final bidding terms in December. Projects awarded contracts under the auction will supply electricity under 15-year power purchase agreements for 2026-2040.