Acciona increases its wind energy and solar power in Chile

The San Gabriel wind farm in La Araucanía and the Almeyda photovoltaic plant in Atacama take the company’s operational capacity in the country to 536 MW.

ACCIONA has put two new renewable energy projects into service in Chile in the last trimester: the San Gabriel wind farm (183 MW) in the region of La Araucanía and the Almeyda photovoltaic plant (62 MWp) in the region of Atacama. This means that the company has increased its operating capacity in the country by 84%, strengthening its position as the main generator of 100% renewable electricity in the Chilean market.

The start-up of San Gabriel and Almeyda takes ACCIONA’s renewables capacity in Chile to 536 MW, these two facilities joining the Punta Palmeras wind farm (45 MW) in the region of Coquimbo, grid connected in 2014, and the El Romero Solar photovoltaic plant (246 MWp) in Atacama, operational since November 2016.

ACCIONA’s generation capacity will continue to grow in Chile in 2020, when it will complete the construction of the Tolpán wind farm (84 MW) in the region of La Araucanía and the Usya photovoltaic plant (64 MWp) in the region of Antofagasta. These plants are expected to enter service in the middle of the year.

ACCIONA Director General, Energy for South America José Ignacio Escobar explains that “in the last three years we have undertaken an ambitious capital expenditure program of around 600 million dollars, which will take us to an installed capacity of 684 MW in the country in 2020. Our commitment to continue investing in Chile remains intact. ACCIONA is the main operator in exclusively renewable energies in the country and we will continue with our development plant to support the decarbonization process that our energy matrix is taking on”.

In recent years, ACCIONA’s growth in Chile has been the result of contracts awarded in two of the public energy auctions called for regulated market clients in Chile, and energy sale contracts with companies such as Google, Falabella, ENAMI, LATAM Airlines, Aguas Chañar and ECONSSA.

ACCIONA is a global operator in renewables with 30 years’ experience in the sector and more than 10,071 megawatts (MW) under its ownership, distributed in 16 countries on the five continents. It has 224 wind farms, 76 hydropower plants, 6 large photovoltaic plants, 3 biomass plants and a Concentrated Solar Power plant. The company markets energy to large customers