Central & South America

The project was selected by the Chilean government in November’s renewable energy auction.

The Santiago solar plant, located near the country’s capital city, Santiago, will sell its output to local power distributors and to the spot market.

Overall, the Brazilian government has pre-qualified biomass, wind, solar and hydropower projects with a combined capacity of 48.7 GW.

The feasibility study for the 1.7 GW Green Silicon project was conducted by Germany’s Fraunhofer IPA, Fraunhofer ISE, Viridis-iq and ZSW in 2015. The project is being developed by the local hydropower producer, Itaipú in partnership with the industry trade association of the Brazilian state of Paraná, and with the support of German industry association, Solar Cluster Baden-Württemberg.

The solar kits will be installed in rural areas with no connection to the country’s power grid.

The facility, which is located in the region of Coquimbo, will sell power to the Metro of the country’s capital city, Santiago under a long-term PPA.

The new rules, now published in the country’s official journal, will enable owners of PV and renewable energy power generators to sell excess power to the local distributors.

Solar was able to cover just 0.17% of the country’s total power production in the first half of last year, representing 0.62% of total generation capacity.

Almost 85% of the country’s installed capacity, which is sitting at around 1.1 GW, is represented by large-scale solar plants contracted by the Brazilian government in energy auctions that were held between 2014 and 2015.

In 2017, around 32 MW of new PV systems were connected to the grid of the Caribbean country, accounting for almost half of cumulative capacity.