Spanish independent power producer (IPP) Grenergy has sold the fourth phase of its flagship solar-plus-storage project in Chile, Oasis de Atacama.
Infrastructure investor CVC DIF, a subsidiary of asset manager CVC, acquired the project for up to US$475 million. As part of the agreement, the Spanish IPP will provide operations and maintenance services for five years.
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Dubbed Gabriela, this phase represents one-tenth of the entire Oasis de Atacama project—2GW of solar PV and 11GWh of BESS—with 272MW of solar PV and 1.1GWh of battery energy storage system (BESS). As the name of the project indicates, it is located in the solar hotbed of the Atacama Desert, in northern Chile.
Currently under construction, the commercial operation date for the fourth phase is expected in the first half of 2026.
Financing for Gabriela was secured at the beginning of the year with international financial banks BNP Paribas, Natixis, Société Générale, the Bank of Nova Scotia and SMBC. In January, Grenergy secured US$324 million in green financing for Gabriela’s construction, as covered by our sister-site Energy-Storage.news.
In total, Grenergy has now sold one-third of the Oasis de Atacama project and retains 1.2GW of solar PV and 7.3GWh of BESS. Late last year, the company sold the first three phases of the project—which combine 451MW of solar PV and 2.5GWh of BESS—to ContourGlobal, a subsidiary of investment firm KKR.
The first two phases of the project were commissioned in April 2025, while the third phase is expected to be operational in the second half of this year.
Co-locating solar with BESS in Chile
The flagship Oasis de Atacama project has been at the centre of the company’s roadmap to 2027. Grenergy aims to replicate the gigawatt Oasis de Atacama plant with two other solar-plus-storage projects, one in Chile and another in Spain.
Unlike the Oasis de Atacama, the new solar-plus-storage plant will be located in Central Chile and will have an installed capacity of 1.1GW of solar PV and 3.8GWh of BESS. A total investment of €900 million (US$1 billion) will be required to build the five phases of the project, which are expected to be operational by 2027.
The other solar-plus-storage project, located in the company’s home country of Spain, will be located in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha. The Escuderos plant is expected to have 200MW of solar PV and 704MWh of BESS. The company expects to begin construction in the second half of 2025.
BESS has become an important technology in Chile, with IPP Atlas inaugurating an 800MWh standalone BESS project in April. Co-locating storage with solar assets in particular has become a financial necessity (Premium access) due to the marginal costs of building solar PV as a standalone in Chile.
Adding to that challenge, the country has also seen a drastic increase in the curtailment of solar and wind in the past few years. In 2024, nearly 6TWh of solar and wind generation was curtailed, which represented a more than twofold increase from 2023.
Despite these challenges, Chile remains a leading market for solar PV and energy storage in South America. Along with Brazil, the two countries are forecast to account for 78% of the 160GW new PV installations in the region by 2034.
