Independent power producer (IPP) Verano Energy has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with Chilean gas provider Abastible for a solar-plus-storage project.
Located in the solar hotbed region of Atacama in northern Chile, the Domeyko project will have an 83MW solar PV capacity and 660MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity.
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The project is expected to be operational at the end of 2026 and represents an investment of US$230 million.
According to the company, the PPA with Abastible reinforces Verano Energy into its transformation as an IPP, while integrating BESS solutions to its PV project. In that end, the company launched Verano Power last September to include not just the in-house development of renewable energy projects and green hydrogen but also its financing and operations and maintenance (O&M).
The company is composed of three divisions: project development, engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) and the aforementioned O&M business unit.
Its development business has over 350MW of capacity operational across 60 projects. Many of the operational PV projects in Chile are under the Pequeños Medios de Generación Distribuidos (PMGD) programme, which are projects with an installed capacity of up to 9MW.
The co-location of BESS capacity with operational solar PV plants or the construction of solar-plus-storage projects in Chile has been increasingly more common and is a response to a twofold issue in the country.
One of which is the ever-increasing curtailment of solar PV and wind capacity in the country, which reached a record 6TWh in 2024, more than doubling the numbers registered in 2023. The other issue is the reduction of income due to low prices of electricity with increasing zero marginal cost which makes building solar PV with storage an “absolute necessity” in the South American country.
Chile is among one of the Latin American countries where the IPP has a solar portfolio of projects operational and under construction. It is also present in Argentina, where it started construction of a 200MW solar PV plant last October; in Peru where it targets to build a nearly 6GW solar farm to produce green ammonia by the middle of 2027 and Colombia where it was awarded solar PV capacity in a renewables tender held a year ago.
