The plant consists of the installation and operation of 367,200 solar panels, adding an installed power of 240 MW and will have a booster substation, a disconnector and a high voltage evacuation line (154 kV) that will be connected to the existing one called Itagüe – Tinguiririca . More than 70 thousand families in the Maule region will be benefited by the photovoltaic energy project.
At the close of his tour of the Maule Region, President Gabriel Boric together with the Minister of Economy, Nicolás Grau, were part of the inauguration of the Gran Teno Photovoltaic Plant located in the San Rafael subdivision project, in the commune of Teno . With its launch, the complex, developed by the Spanish company Grenergy, became the largest solar plant that exists in the south of the country and at the same time the largest in South America.
In the instance, the President pointed out that “this project developed by Grenergy shows that it is not only necessary, and if necessary, it is possible to move towards a cleaner and more sustainable future. To the extent that all the different actors commit to it (…) both from the private and public world, from local authorities, such as technical authorities, also passing through national authorities to private investors, both national and international, I believe that “It speaks of the virtuous ecosystem that is generated when we do things well.”
In addition, he assured that when a company is willing to work together with local communities and constantly dialogue with the authorities to resolve doubts or difficulties that exist in a project, they “come out faster and not slower.”
According to the company, the plant will bring green energy to 136,000 Chilean homes, benefiting more than 70 thousand families in the Maule region. The plant consists of the installation and operation of 367,200 solar panels, adding an installed power of 241 MW, which in turn will prevent the emission of more than 147,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
The Gran Teno plant is planned to have a useful life of 30 years, and will join the more than 80 plants that Grenergy has already connected in Chile. The company has invested more than US$700 million in the country, a figure that plans to increase by up to an additional US$1.4 billion in the development of Oasis de Atacama. The initiative is constituted as the largest renewable project in Latin America during the years 2024 and 2025, the period in which the majority of this investment will be executed.
“The best is yet to come. We have recently announced our most ambitious and innovative project, Oasis de Atacama, which once completed will become the largest storage project in the world, with a capacity of 4.1GWh and close to 1GW solar. Oasis de Atacama is divided into five bases. We are going to invest up to US$1.4 billion, we already have the first phase under construction and it will be fully operational in less than 3 years, with 75% of the investment operation concentrated in the second half of this year 2024 and the first half of 2025 , improving the stability of the network and contributing to decarbonization,” explained David Ruiz.
