Investor SUSI Partners will fund the development of a battery energy storage system (BESS) portfolio in Chile, totalling 860MW of power and and up to 3.5GWh of energy storage capacity.
The deal, through its SUSI Energy Transition Fund (SETF), will see the Switzerland-based firm invest in 22 separate BESS projects in the central-southern area of Chile developed by BIWO Renewables.
The majority of the projects are at ‘advanced stages’ of development and the first are expected to reach ready-to-build (RTB) status in the first half of 2025. The power and capacity imply an average duration of around four hours per project.
It builds on SUSI and BIWO’s partnership in Chile, with SUSI investing in two solar-plus-storage projects developed by BIWO in November last year, which will feature 232MWp of solar PV and up to 900MWh of energy storage capacity.
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Energy-Storage.news has asked SUSI to confirm whether the new portfolio includes or is in addition to these and will update this article if an answer is received. The announcement implied, though didn’t explicitly say, that the 860MW portfolio is made up of standalone projects, implying they may all be new projects.
The energy storage market in Chile is being driven by its high – and growing – penetration of solar PV and the grid congestion that comes with that, considering the most regions with the highest irradiance are in the north while demand centres are in the south.
BESS are either being deployed as independent projects that help the grid operator manage congestion, trade energy and provide capacity market services, or alongside solar PV to support renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs).
Standalone energy storage’s participation in the electricity market was enabled in late 2022 while its capacity market payments were recently finalised too, paving the way for project owners to build a business case.
SUSI is also active in the energy storage markets in the US, with projects in ERCOT, and Italy.
Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 3rd annual Energy Storage Summit Latin America in Santiago, Chile, 15-16 October 2024. This year’s events bring together Latin America’s leading investors, policymakers, developers, utilities, network operators, EPCs and more all in one place to discuss the landscape of energy storage in the region. Visit the official site for more info.
