Solar power in Chile is an increasingly important source of energy. Total installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity in Chile reached 11.05 GW in 2023. In 2024, Solar energy provided 19.92 TWh of electricity generation in Chile, accounting for 22.3% of total national electricity grid generation, compared to less than 0.1% in 2013. In October 2015 Chile's Ministry of Energy announced its "Roadmap to 2050: A Sustainable and Inclusive Strategy", which planned for 19% of the country's electricity to be from solar energy, 23%

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

, and 29%

hydroelectric power Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

. In November 2024, Chile's solar power generation capacity was projected to quadruple until 2060, in order to help decarbonize Chile's electricity generation. Energy storage will play a key role in taking in excess supply during the day and releasing it during the night. Due to its high solar potential, solar power developments will likely grow most in the north. Solar generation is expected to contribute 46% of Chile's electricity in 2060.

Solar resource

Northern Chile has the highest solar incidence in the world.

Photovoltaics, annual capacity

Early photovoltaics projects

In June 2014, the 100-

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

(MW) Amanecer Solar CAP, a photovoltaic power plant located near

Copiapó Copiapó () is a List of cities in Chile, city and communes of Chile, commune in northern Chile, located about 65 kilometers east of the coastal List of towns in Chile, town of Caldera, Chile, Caldera. Founded on December 8, 1744, it is the capi ...

in the

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barre ...

was inaugurated. It was developed by the company with the same name, Amanecer Solar CAP, and was the largest in Latin America at the time. It is capable of generating 270 gigawatt-hours ( GWh) of electricity per year. The 70 MW photovoltaic Salvador Solar Park went online in November 2014, followed by an official inauguration ceremony on 23 January 2015. It was expected to produce 200 GWh of electricity per year. The plant is located approximately 5 kilometres south of

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

, in the Atacama region. It is one of the first in the world to supply competitively priced solar energy to the open market without government subsidy. The 60 MW photovoltaic Lalackama I plant went online in 2014 and is expected to produce 160 GWh of electricity per year. The nearby 18 MW Lalackama II plant went online in May 2015 and is capable of generating approximately 50 GWh per year. Both plants feature photovoltaic inverters designed and manufactured by Elettronica Santerno, an Italian company. The 141 MW photovoltaic Luz Del Norte (Light of the North) plant, located 58 kilometres northeast of the city of

in the Atacama region, began construction in October 2014 and is scheduled for completion in December 2015. It uses more than 1.7 million cadmium telluride modules. The first two blocks of this project (approximately half of the project's total capacity) was connected to Chile's central power grid in October 2015. The plant supplies ancillary grid services. The 79 MW Pampa Norte PV solar plant began operating in April 2016 at a site 32 kilometres southwest of Taltal in Chile's Antofagasta Region. It uses approximately 258,000 polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic modules and is capable of generating more than 200 GWh per year. The plant was developed by Enel Green Power and features photovoltaic inverters designed and manufactured by Elettronica Santerno. The 97 MW Carrera Pinto photovoltaic plant is located 60 kilometres from the city of

in the Atacama Region. The first 20 MW of the plant was connected to the grid in early January 2016, with the remaining 77 MW connected in August 2016. The plant is capable of generating over 260 GWh per year. The 246 MW El Romero single-axis tracking solar photovoltaic plant began operating in November 2016 at

Vallenar Vallenar is a city and commune in Atacama Region, Chile. It is the capital of the Huasco Province and is located in the valley of the Huasco River. Vallenar has 52,000 inhabitants. Its main activities are farming and mining. It was founded as ...

in the Atacama region, with a 493 GWh annual average output. It was the largest solar farm in Latin America when it opened. It uses 776,000 polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic modules. The

solar irradiance Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre ( ...

has been measured at 853 W/m2. In 2016, SolarPack won an electricity auction by bidding $29.1/MWh; a record low price. In March 2020 PV Magazine reported that Solarpack had begun providing power on 2 March 2020, to the Chilean grid from its 123 MW Granja project, 10 months ahead of the contracted date of 1 January 2021. With that, Solarpack raised its total operating capacity in Chile at the time to 181 MW.

Solar thermal power

In 2013 the Atacama 1 solar complex was proposed as a 110 MW

solar thermal Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in Industrial sector, industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. Solar thermal collectors are classified ...

electric plant (the first in Latin America) and a 100 MW photovoltaic plant. The solar thermal plant will include 17.5 hours of

thermal storage Thermal energy storage (TES) is the storage of thermal energy for later reuse. Employing widely different technologies, it allows surplus thermal energy to be stored for hours, days, or months. Scale both of storage and use vary from small t ...

. These technologies complement each other to supply clean and stable energy 24 hours a day. The complex is located in the commune of María Elena, Segunda Región. Construction of the solar thermal electric plant commenced in 2014 and the plant was scheduled to begin operating in the second quarter of 2017, but got delayed significantly. Construction of the photovoltaic plant commenced in January 2015 and the plant began operating in June 2016 with 160 MW of panels, the largest solar plant in Chile at the time. By the end of 2020 the project was fully erected under the name Cerro Dominador Solar Thermal Plant and is expected to fully operate in 2021. Because of its good solar resource several international companies have bid record low prices for solar thermal power plants in Chile, including the Copiapó Solar Project bid at $63/MWh by SolarReserve in 2017. If realized this would have been the lowest ever price for a CSP project in the world. Several CSP projects are under development in Chile, but in the absence of technology specific support policies Cerro Dominador is the only one under construction, yet.

Batteries

Some solar facilities also have batteries connected, as they can deliver power after sunset when prices are higher. During 2024, 5.9 TWh of electricity was curtailed (mainly solar in the north) due to insufficient transmission, an increase from 2.7 TWh in 2023. ''Oasis de Atacama'' is a multi-site project with up to 2 GW of solar power and 11 GWh of storage. By early 2025, the first phases (Quillagua and Víctor Jara) were being tested, using Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.

Under construction

Planned

References

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