Sonnedix has concluded the $556 million purchase of a 416 MW solar portfolio in Chile from Enel Chile. The company has purchased Arcadia Generacion Solar, a company that manages a portfolio of four active solar power projects. Reportedly, the deal was finalised following permission from the Chilean antitrust authority, Fiscalía Nacional Económica, and was initially revealed in July 2023.
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SUSI Partners, a Swiss funds management firm, has secured debt financing for a 107 MW portfolio of solar distributed generation (DG) projects in Chile. Reportedly, the firm, working on behalf of its SUSI Energy Transition Fund (SETF), acquired an undisclosed amount of funds from the Miami branch of Chilean bank Banco de Credito e Inversiones (BCI) and Norwegian financial services group DNB.
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Energy giant Enel Chile, through its Chilean unit Enel Green Power Chile, has begun commercial operation of the country’s 398MW Guanchoi solar plant. Enel received authorisation from the national electricity coordinator to commence operation after the solar plant passed all tests ensuring its safety and performance. Located in the Atacama region in the country, the Guanchoi solar plant is powered by 893,508 solar panels.
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Goldbeck Solar, a German solar developer, has acquired a $47.9 million HoldCo loan facility from French asset management RGreen Invest to build four solar projects totaling 93 MW. The finance is provided by RGreen through its Infrabridge III senior debt fund. The four ground-mounted solar power facilities, with respective capacities of 69 MW and 24 MW, are situated in Chile and Canada.
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Repsol Ibereolica Renovables Chile, a Repsol and Ibereólica Renovables Group joint venture, has completed the 165.3MW Atacama wind farm in Huasco, Chile. The facility has the ability to produce 450 GWh of renewable energy annually, which is sufficient to power more than 150,000 Chilean households while displacing 320,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. It is outfitted with 29 Nordex N163 wind turbines, which have already begun to feed the grid with their first megawatt-hours of fully renewable energy.
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RWE Renewables, a subsidiary of the German energy company RWE AG, has started work on its first green hydrogen project in Chile, with plans to add approximately 835 MW of electrolysis capacity. The project, known as Vientos Magallanicos or the Winds of Magallanes, will also include 1 GW of wind farms to supply electricity for the electrolysis process.
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With an aim to support the country’s decarbonisation plans, Chile has enacted a new Law 21505 to promote electrical energy storage and electromobility. It is based on the Proyecto de Ley Sobre Promoción del Almacenamiento y La Electromovilidad or the Electricity Storage and Electromobility Promotion Bill, which received approval from the Senate in October 2022 and has recently been enacted into law.
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The analysis reviews Chile’s electricity generation data. According to the report, for the first time, wind and solar generated more of Chile’s electricity than coal over a full 12-month period. Only six years ago, in 2016, just 6.6% of electricity was generated by wind and solar, while coal was responsible for a vast 43.6% of Chile’s electricity.
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Repsol Ibereólica Renovables Chile, a partnership between Repsol Chile and Ibereólica Renovables Chile, has received financing for Project Atacama, a greenfield wind farm in northern Chile. For the construction and operation of the 165.3 MW wind farm, which already has a long-term power purchase agreement in place, the JV has raised $118 million.
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In recent years, Chile has created several public policies for clean transportation. Particularly noteworthy are Chile’s energy efficiency law and its zero-emission sales targets. The law not only sets stringent fuel economy standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles––a first for Latin America––but also includes tax incentives for zero-emission vehicles, provides for interoperability of recharging systems for EVs, and designates hydrogen as an official fuel.
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Chile has set a target of providing carbon neutral electricity by 2050 and aims to retire its 28 installed coal projects with a cumulative capacity of over 5,529 MW by 2040. As per PELP, 81.6 GW of new generation capacity will be added during 2022–50, entirely based on renewables, including 6.6 GW of storage capacity. However, the withdrawal of coal-fired plants and insertion of renewables bring several challenges for the grid.
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Innergex Renewable Energy, based in Canada, has completed the $685.6 million acquisition of Aela Generación and Aela Energa, together known as Aela. Aela was founded in 2013 by a joint venture between Mainstream Renewable Power, a global renewable energy project developer, and Actis, a global sustainable infrastructure investor.
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Innergex Renewable Energy, a Canadian power company, has selected Mitsubishi Power’s Emerald Storage Solution for battery energy storage (BESS) projects in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The contracts are for Innergex’s 68 MW Salvador and 50.6 MW San Andres solar plants, which are slated to begin construction next year. The five-hour energy duration projects will cost $128.5 million in total and have a combined capacity of 85 MW/425 MWh.
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In November 2020, Chile published an important document setting out what was called the National Green Hydrogen Strategy. It is clear from the strategy that Chile views a significant long-term role for green hydrogen, made via electrolysis using renewable electricity. It is not clear at this point if there is room for blue hydrogen, using natural gas as a feedstock with CCS probably in the Magallanes area.
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Solek Latam Holding, a Chilean subsidiary of the Czech renewable energy business Solek Group, has signed a framework agreement to construct solar projects in Chile. The solar projects will be created and then sold to BlackRock’s Global Renewable Power Fund III (GRP III) under the terms of the agreement. Solek will manage the projects’ operations and maintenance, while Aediles Capital will manage the assets on behalf of GRP III.
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Enel Green Power has launched a pilot plant for the production of green hydrogen in Chile. The project is Chile’s first industrial-scale production plant of green hydrogen. The plant is located at Cabo Negro north of Punta Arenas and has a capacity of 1.25 MW. It will produce green hydrogen through electrolysis powered by a 3.4 MW wind turbine. The project also makes Enel Green Power’s first venture of green hydrogen to start construction globally. The plant is likely to be operational by 2022.
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Chile’s latest power auction saw five successful bidders winning a total of 2 GW of renewables and storage projects across the country. Sonnedix, Opdenergy and Canadian Solar are among the successful bidders. A total of 29 companies participated in the bid, with the lowest bid priced at $13.32/MWh.
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AES Andes, a south American power company, has begun the permitting process for a 258 MW wind farm in Bio Bio, Chile. The Rinconada wind farm is planned to have 43 turbines, each with a capacity of 6 MW, as well as the necessary transmission infrastructure.
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Mainstream Renewable Power has completed the first phase of its 1,350 MW Andes Renovables wind and solar power platform in Chile, with a total capacity of 571 MW. The development implies that the portfolio has begun delivering electricity to Chile’s National Electricity System and has begun testing prior to commercial operation in order to ensure optimal performance.
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Germany and Chile recently signed a letter of intent for a bilateral alliance on hydrogen production and trade to enable a renewable energy hydrogen supply chain between the nations. Under this, a green hydrogen working group would be created as a part of the Chilean-German Energy Association (AEE).
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