Chile’s energy minister Jorge Bunster has inaugurated the country’s first solar plant connected to the Central Interconnected System (SIC).
The 1.2MW Tambo Real solar project is located on 2.5 hectares of land near Vicuña in the Coquimbo region in the northeast of Chile. The US$3 million project was constructed by Chilean PV developer Kaltemp and is equipped with 5,200 PV modules.
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The Tambo Real solar project is the third solar project in Chile to come online in the country. The other two projects are the 1MW Calama 3 project and the 1.4MW Huayca project, which are both connected to the Northern Interconnected System (SING).
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Bunster said that Chile has great potential in renewable energy. In 2012, Bunster revealed that 32% of electricity generation in the country was from renewable sources and he hopes to increase this figure.
The country has ambitious plans for its solar industry and has 3.1GW worth of approved PV projects in the pipeline with a further 908MW currently under consideration for approval by the Chilean environmental authority Servicio de Evaluación Ambiental.
