Switzerland-based renewable energy specialists Etrion have commenced construction of a 70 MW PV power plant in Chile's Atacama region.
The project titled Project Salvador is part of Etrion's wider 100 MW solar pipeline in the country, and will be completed in collaboration with Total S.A. and local solar energy company, Solventus Energias Renovables.
Initially, Project Salvador will operate on a spot market basis, calculated in US dollars. There will also be the possibility for utility companies to secure future power purchase agreements for the plant, which is 70% owned by Etrion, with Total claiming 20% and Solventus the remaining 10%.
The total cost of the project is estimated to be $200 million, of which 70% will be financed through non-recourse project debt supplied by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). Etrion, Total and Solventus have supplied the remaining 30% of funding, equal to their respective share of ownership.
Onsite, Project Salvador will use SunPower's high-efficiency single-axis tracker technology to ensure maximum PV output in one of the worlds sunniest and driest regions. Completion is expected by the end of the first quarter of 2015.
In further good news from Etrion, the company announced this week that its 17 PV power plants in Italy with a combined capacity of 60 MW produced 2% more electricity in 2013 than forecast, delivering 104.9 million kWh of clean solar energy last year.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.