Sky Solar buys 24 MW of DGPV projects in Chile

Chinese developer, owner and operator of solar parks Sky Solar Holdings, Ltd. has agreed to acquire three PV projects with a combined capacity of 24 MW in Chile from Italian renewable energy company Renergetica.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sky Solar said that the three 3 shovel-ready projects are all located in the O'Higgins Region, and are being developed under Chile’s PMGD Program for distributed generation (Pequeños Medios de Generación Distribuida).

The program, which is supporting projects up to 9 MW, grants PV plant owners stabilized prices that are higher than the spot market prices because they are calculated by the Chilean national Energy Commission (CNE) with a mid-term perspective. Furthermore, the program grants automatic connection to the medium voltage grid and the certainty that all power production will be injected to the electricity system. “This price,” Sky Solar said in its press release, is based on the forecast marginal cost over the next ten years and is set by the CNE (Comisión Nacional de Energía) every six months. Additionally, PMG pricing is not subject to time of day variation.”

In its financial results for the first half of 2017, Sky Solar had reported that during the period it signed letters of intent and share purchase agreements to secure a total of 40 MW of distributed deneration project permits in Chile.

Several projects were acquired or completed under the PMGD program over the past months. In early September, the Canadian solar project developer CarbonFree Technology agreed to acquire 65 MW of PMGD solar projects in the country. Earlier in July, French independent power producer Cap Vert Energie (CVE) announced the connection three distributed generation ground-mounted PV plants to the grid near Santiago, central Chile.