A trio of major announcements in the grid-scale BESS market in Chile, with Canadian Solar winning a delivery contract from Colbun, Metlen Energy & Metals selling a solar-plus-storage portfolio to Glenfarne, and Atlas Renewable Energy securing financing for a project.
Canadian Solar’s E-Storage to supply 912MWh BESS for Colbun
E-Storage, the battery energy storage system (BESS) arm of solar PV manufacturer Canadian Solar, has won a 912MWh supply contract for utility and power generator Colbun in Chile.
E-Storage will supply 228MW/912MWh of its Solbank 3.0 BESS and battery management system (BMS) technology for Colbun’s Diego de Almagro Sur project in Chile’s northern Atacama region. E-Storage will also provide fully integrated solution that includes local project management, commissioning services, and long-term maintenance.
Construction is set to start on Diego de Almagro Sur in June 2025 with commercial operation expected in December 2026. The project will be co-located with the Diego de Almagro Sur Solar Park, which has been online since 2022. Colbun already deployed an 8MW/32MWh BESS at the site, commissioned in 2022 as well, provided by system integrator Wärtsilä.
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The new, larger BESS supplied by E-Storage will also deliver advanced grid services like grid forming, black start and inertia support, the company said.
Glenfarne acquires solar and storage projects in Chile from Metlen
Investor Glenfarne Asset Company has agreed to acquire a portfolio of solar and BESS projects in Chile from Metlen, a Greece-headquartered developer and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm.
The solar portions of the projects are operational, totalling 588MW, while the co-located BESS are under construction with a total capacity of 1,610MWh. Construction is expected to be completed in 2025.
The projects are geographically diversified with multiple interconnection nodes into the electricity network of Chile, operated by Sistema Eléctrico Nacional (SEN), Metlen said.
The total consideration of the deal is US$815 million, including assumption of debt and based on certain financing assumptions, but the deal closure will only happen once the BESS are operational and regulatory approvals are obtained.
Metlen did not name the projects sold to Glenfarne, but the BESS is similar in size to its Mesembria project, a 1,607MWh BESS the firm said it expected to complete by the end of the year too. In addition to that, Metlen recently announced EPC wins for three BESS in Chile totalling 2.5GWh.
Atlas Renewable Energy secures US$510 million for 215MW/1.6GWh solar-plus-storage
Solar PV developer Atlas Renewable Energy has secured US$510 million in financing for a solar-plus-storage project in Chile.
This marks the largest financing agreement secured by the developer, which was signed with international banking institutions BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, DNB Bank, Scotiabank Chile, the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and the Bank of Nova Scotia.
Located in the Antofagasta region – which has one of the highest irradiation levels in the world – the Estepa project will be a hybrid system with an installed solar capacity of 215MW and two battery energy storage systems (BESS) with a 418MW output and 4-hour duration.
Commercial operation of the solar-plus-storage project is expected at the end of 2026. Two long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) have been secured for the Estepa project with state-owned mining company Codelco and Chilean utility Colbun.
We caught up with Atlas’ head of execution Alex Monzo in July last year to discuss the opportunities in Chile but also the challenges in executing projects, notably a scarcity of contractors (Premium access article).
Chile a hotbed of grid-scale BESS activity
Chile is one of the most active grid-scale BESS markets globally and by far the busiest in Latin America, driven by sky-high curtailment of solar PV in recent years and the energy trading opportunities that represents, but also opportunities in the capacity market (CM).
Energy-Storage.news wrote a feature on Chile for a recent edition of our quarterly journal PV Tech Power. The country is the site of Oasis de Atacama, one of the world’s largest BESS projects, where this month has seen the commissioning of phases one and two announced by owner ContourGlobal with the third phase under construction.
See the original version of the Atlas Renewable Energy article on PV Tech.
Additional reporting by Jonathan Touriño Jacobo.
