The solar energy project developer Enel Green Power recently finished bringing over 100 MW of new solar PV power capacity online — spread amongst the 60 MW Lalackama project, the 40 MW Chañares project, and the Diego de Almagro project (the final phase of the project) — in Northern Chile.
As mentioned already, all of these projects are located in the northerly reaches of the country — in particular, in the Antofagasta and Atacama regions. All of the projects also have in common the fact that they are all slated to sell the electricity that they generate to Chile’s Central Grid.
The total development costs of said projects rests somewhere around $240 million — thereby marking a substantial investment into the country’s future by Italy-based Enel Green Power. Owing to these recent projects, amongst others, the company is now one of the most prominent and largest developers of renewable energy projects in South America. Actually, it’s the second-largest in Latin America.
Based on factors such as: partnerships in the industry, well-positioned subsidiaries, and access to a lot of capital, you could pretty reasonably make the argument that the company is actually the most competitively placed company in the industry in the whole of the region. (And this is just one of many regions where the renewable energy company is in business.)
Something to note — interestingly, the new Diego de Almagro project utilized Enel’s multi-junction thin-film solar PV modules (produced in Sicily). These solar modules are based on the utilization of a micro-crystalline layer combined with an amorphous silicon layer — this design allows for the modules to perform effectively under harsh high-temperature, low-light conditions. The downside to this versatility of performance conditions is that said modules possess a solar conversion efficiency of “only” 9.6%.
The combined electricity generation of all of these new Enel Green Power solar PV plants is expected to be enough for 188,000 Chilean households.
Image Credit: Enel Green Power
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