Chile’s PV capacity surpasses 2 GW

Chile’s cumulative installed solar PV power has reached around 1.829 GW at the end of last year, according to the December Monthly Report on renewables published by the country’s National Energy Commission (CNE).

The country’s current accumulated power, however, has already exceeded 2 GW, as in early January two large solar plants were connected to the local grid, the 115 MW Santiago solar power plant by French EDF and the 100 MW Pelicano PV plant by U.S. solar manufacturer, SunPower.

The report also reveals that, during the month of December, new PV installations with a combined power of 48 MW were connected to the Chilean grid, while PV plants under test fell, from 314 MW to 281 MW.

The total number of solar plants currently under construction also fell slightly, from 290 MW to 281 MW, while the combined volume of all authorized solar projects remained unchanged at 15.62 GW.

As for PV projects currently under review, CNE said its total capacity increased slightly from 7.566 GW to 7.575 GW.

If the two new plants inaugurated in January are also considered, newly installed PV capacity in Chile for the past 12 months reached around 1 GW.

The CNE report also shows that in December, Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) has accepted for review two new solar projects eligible for the PMDG program, which supports projects up to 9 MW in size.

In terms of new capacity for distributed generation, the report reveals that the total capacity of all the generation systems for renewable sources and co-generation connected to the network has reached a total of just 12.9 MW at the end of last December, a very negligible amount, given Chile’s high solar potential.