Independent power producer (IPP) ContourGlobal has begun construction of its fourth large-scale solar PV and battery storage hybrid project in Chile.
The company is fully owned by US investment firm KKR and is building its Los Maitenes project in the O’Higgins Region administrative division.
The solar-plus-storage plant will combine 131MWp of solar PV generation with 90MW/360MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS). It is scheduled to go into commercial operation by the end of 2027.
ContourGlobal said Los Maitenes is strategically located close to major electricity load centres. The O’Higgins Region hosts mining operations and is attracting data centre developments and is about 140km from the national capital, Santiago.
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As of the end of 2025, Chile had around 11.7GW of cumulative solar PV installs, including 1.2GW added last year. Almost two-thirds of that capacity is in the northern Atacama and Antofagasta regions.
The growth of solar and wind has led to widespread curtailment of renewable generation during times when the grid cannot absorb it all. According to renewable energy and storage trade association ACERA, more than 6TWh of solar and wind was curtailed during 2025.
However, without energy storage, which Chile has been relatively fast in adopting, that number would have been more than 8TWh, ACERA said, forecasting that the Latin American country will have around 9GW of operational BESS by 2027, with an average 4-hour duration.
ContourGlobal said that its Los Maitenes asset will mitigate curtailment risk as well as delivering firm energy during peak demand in hours when solar isn’t being generated. The IPP has signed a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) with an undisclosed offtaker, which will buy daytime and nighttime blocks of energy, although some capacity will be retained for merchant market opportunities.
ContourGlobal CEO Antonio Cammisecra said the project builds on a business model called ‘Sun at Night,’ which, as the name implies, means delivering solar energy to the grid during non-solar peak demand hours.
“Our growth in Chile goes hand-in-hand with the transformation of the country’s power system, which is leading the way in combining renewable generation and energy storage to deliver reliable, dispatchable clean energy at scale,” Cammisecra said.
IPP plants flag in Latin America, Europe and US
ContourGlobal’s previous three solar-plus-storage projects in Chile were all purchased from Spanish IPP Grenergy in late 2024. They form the first three phases of Grenergy’s massive Oasis de Atacama renewable energy platform, which will comprise a total 2GW of solar and 11GWh of battery storage when complete.
ContourGlobal brought the first two phases, Quillagua 1 and Quillagua 2, comprising 221MW solar PV and 1.2GWh BESS capacity, into operation in the spring of 2025. In May, it brought online the third project bought from Grenergy, the 231MW PV, 1,300MWh BESS Victor Jara project in Tarapacá. ContourGlobal has a 15-year nighttime-only PPA for Victor Jara signed with utility Copec EMOAC.
Elsewhere, the IPP bought 1.6GW/9.5GWh of in-development BESS projects in Italy in July last year and put a 202MW/505MWh standalone BESS into operation in Bulgaria at the beginning of this year before buying its first project in Greece.
Last month the company acquired a 2GWh development project in Scotland, UK. Although ContourGlobal is headquartered in the UK, the acquisition, from partners that included developer New Energy Partnership, marked its first BESS investment in the country. The IPP is also thought to be about to start construction on a solar-plus-storage project in Arizona, US, which will feature a 360MW/1,400MWh BESS.
Our publisher Solar Media, part of Informa Connect, will host the Energy Storage Summit Latin America 2026 on 27-28 October, 2026, in Santiago Chile. Energy-Storage.news readers can use our discount code ESN20 at checkout for 20% off tickets.
