San Pedro Wind Farm () is a

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

in the heights of

Cordillera del Piuchén A cordillera is a chain or network of mountain ranges, such as those in the west coast of the Americas. The term is borrowed from Spanish, where the word comes from , a diminutive of ('rope'). The term is most commonly used in physical geograp ...

Chiloé Island Chiloé Island (, , ), also known as Greater Island of Chiloé (''Isla Grande de Chiloé''), is the largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago off the west coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean. The island is located in southern Chile, in the Los L ...

, Chile. The construction of San Pedro Wind Farm was approved in 2011 by Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental (SEIA), being one of four large wind farm projects approved by SEIA in the period of 2010–2017. Its total of 68 wind turbines were to be constructed in a two step programme, first 20 and then 48.

Gamesa Gamesa (formerly Galletera Mexicana S.A. de C.V. "Mexican Biscuit Company")(also Grupo Gamesa) is Mexico's largest manufacturer of cookies. The company also makes flour, ready to eat cereals and other related products. It is headquartered in Sa ...

was contracted in both steps to construct wind turbines. The wind farm was built to produce 252 MW energy and it connects to Subestación Chiloé of the

Sistema Interconectado Central The Sistema Interconectado Central (Spanish for ''Central Interconnected System'') or SIC was the main alternating current power grid in Chile spanning all of Chile from Atacama Region in the north to Los Lagos Region in the south. SIC transmitted ...

, Chile's main power grid, though a 21.6 km long

transmission line In electrical engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable or other structure designed to conduct electromagnetic waves in a contained manner. The term applies when the conductors are long enough that the wave nature of the transmis ...

. Personnel of the wind farm project were fast to collect signatures of approval from local residents with

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

surnames, reportedly to avoid legal issues associated with the ILO-convention 169. The local community of San Pedro benefited initially by the improvement of roads and the school infrastructure that were part of the project. The commuting time to the main road, was shortened considerably improving connections for the formerly isolated San Pedro community with the towns of

Dalcahue Dalcahue is a port city and a commune in Chiloé Province, on Chiloé Island, Los Lagos Region, Chile. Demographics According to the 2002 census by the National Statistics Institute, the Dalcachue commune spans an area of and had 10,693 inhab ...

and Castro. After this the relation of the wind farm enterprise with the local community slowly deteriorated. There are claims of unfulfilled promises and unequal treatment of different families. There have also been complaints about the dust arisen from the roads and of dangerously high speed at which personnel of the wind farm drives through in populated areas. The builders and owners of the wind farm are the enterprises

Trans Antarctic Energía Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond", or "on the other side of". Used alone, trans may refer to: Sociology * Trans, a sociological term which may refer to: ** Transgender, people who identify themselves with a gender that dif ...

and Bosques de Chiloé.

References

{{coord , 42, 17, 3.71, S, 73, 55, 48.57, W, display=title, type:geo Wind farms in Chile Energy infrastructure in Los Lagos Region Buildings and structures in Chiloé Archipelago