In Chile, AES Andes is developing a 112MW/560MWh BESS plant. A ‘virtual groundbreaking’ ceremony was held in October 2020, as shown. In 2009, AES constructed one of the world’s first grid-scale battery installations in the nation. Chile has released details of its next electricity auction, which will contract 5,250GWh each year for 15 years and will take place later this year.
The tender will be carried out by the country’s National Energy Commission (CNE) to assist the government’s decarbonization initiatives and the development of renewables and energy storage technologies, according to the CNE (ESS).
Domestic and foreign enterprises will be eligible to compete for electricity supply contracts from January 2027 through December 2041, according to CNE. Participants will have until June 17 to enter bids before the winners are revealed on July 4th, according to the auction schedule. Chile’s most recent power auction, held in September, was eight times oversubscribed and will fund 2GW of renewable energy and storage projects.
Sonnedix and Opdenergy, two independent power producers (IPPs), Canadian Solar, a solar manufacturer and project developer, and EDP, a Portuguese utility, were among the successful bids. The sale ended with average prices of US$23.78/MWh, down 27% from the country’s 2017 auction.
According to estimates from the Chilean Association of Renewable Energy and Storage, Chile had slightly over 5.8GW of installed solar PV capacity as of November 2021, the great majority of which is located in the northern areas of Atacama and Antofagasta (ACERA).
Chile aims to achieve a 60 percent renewable energy share in electricity generation by 2035 and a 70 percent renewable energy share by 2050. The government declared a US$400 million commitment to boost the country’s installed energy storage capacity to more than 300MW during the COP26 conference in the UK in November, in partnership with AES Corporation, which is already working on a 118MW BESS project in the Antofagasta area.
Statkraft was given rights to develop a 400MW wind power project with up to 200MW / 1GWh of battery storage in October of last year, according to Energy-Storage.news. In the Latin American country, a number of different battery and non-battery energy storage projects are in the planning, development, or construction stages.
