chile

Growth market investor company Actis has acquired over 1.5GW of solar PV assets from bankrupt SunEdison in Latin America as part of a US$525 million commitment to launch a new Pan-Latin American renewable energy platform — Atlas Renewable Energy.

Mainstream Renewable Power has received environmental approval to develop a 245MW solar plant in Chile, from the South American country’s Environmental Assessment Service.

Chile is set to add 1.5GW of new renewable energy capacity in 2017, according to Carlos Finat, the executive director of Chile’s renewable energy association, ACERA.

Mexico's SENER forecasts massive solar growth, with a 20-fold increase totalling 5.4GW by the end of 2019. In Spain, the long-anticipated renewable energy auction is given a confirmation for the first quarter of this year. Over in Chile, solar energy is being used to power the Santiago metro, through SunPower's El Pelícano project.

EDF Energies Nouvelles, a subsidiary of EDF, has completed a 146MW solar plant and started constructing another 115MW plant in Chile.

Chile plans to develop a solar park of between 750MW to 1GW capacity to power the mining industry in the Atacama region, according to a release from Chilean development agency Corfo.

Acciona Energia has connected its 246MW El Romero Solar plant to the Central Interconnected System (SIC) grid in the Atacama region of Chile.

This week's Movers & Shakers features executive board shake-ups; with both new appointments and departures. PV Tech also reports on happenings in Chile's Renewable Energy Association, as the country emerges as a strong clean energy player in Latin America.

The Latin America region had installed 1.8GW of solar PV by the end of the third quarter this year, already up 400MW from 1.4GW in 2015, according to GTM Research’s Latin America PV Playbook for Q3 2016.

In this week's Movers & Shakers, PV Tech reports on various executive board shuffles; Meyer Burger lets go of its COO, SPI Energy revamps its senior management team and SEPA expands its board of directors. In addition, Mainstream Renewable Power establishes an investment arm and Chile appoints a new energy minister amidst a time of energy policy upheaval.