Alternative Energy Source

The Chilean capital's subsway system is considered the finest, as well as the largest, in Latin America. Through this initiative, CORFO and the Chile Renewable Energy Center (CER) partnered with the Solutions Center to evaluate the country's solar energy plan and assess needs related to the legal framework, diffusion of information, financing, research and development, and human capital development.

While there has been increasing awareness of the strides made in cutting the cost of renewable energy technologies (solar for example energía solar has fallen 90% in cost over the last ten years), the argument is still often being made that coal is the cheapest form of generation.

Pablo Burgos, chief executive of Solarpack said, The Granja project will be one of the most efficient and competitive solar PV plants in the world and will generate more than 340 GWh of clean electricity every year, contributing to the decarbonization of the country's energy matrix".

With a comprehensive value chain, Efacec acts in the generation, distribution and transmission of energy; design, energy, construction and maintenance of integrated systems (EPC - Engineering, Procurement and Construction) for the energy, environment, industry and transports; and development of Electric Mobility solutions and their commercialization.

Unlike the current PPA format, where a solar developer signs an agreement with a customer to purchase power from the solar plant at an agreed-upon price for several years (often fifteen or more), selling electricity on the wholesale power offers the possibility for market prices to fluctuate on an hourly basis.

That means one region can have too much power, driving down prices because the surplus can't be delivered to other parts of the country, according to Carlos Barria, former chief of the government's renewable-energy division and a professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago.

Near the equator in an arid climate far from major sources of industrial and urban pollution, the Atacama Desert, located in northern Chile on the west side of the Andes Mountains, is considered to have the highest irradiation in the world—and thus the highest solar energy potential on Earth.