Chile Focuses on Solar and Storage as Generation Capacity
The project is located in Maria Elena municipality, in the Antofagasta region in Chile. It is expected to be one of the country''s largest solar and storage projects once fully operational.
Solar power in Chile is an increasingly important source of energy. Total installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity in Chile reached 11.05 GW in 2023. In 2024, Solar energy provided 19.92 TWh of electricity generation in Chile, accounting for 22.3% of total national electricity grid generation, compared to less than 0.1% in 2013.
By August 2025, Chile had 4.6 GWh of battery energy capacity. During 2024, 5.9 TWh of electricity was curtailed (mainly solar in the north) due to insufficient transmission, an increase from 2.7 TWh in 2023. Oasis de Atacama is a multi-site project with up to 2 GW of solar power and 11 GWh of storage.
Because of its good solar resource several international companies have bid record low prices for solar thermal power plants in Chile, including the Copiapó Solar Project bid at $63/MWh by SolarReserve in 2017. If realized this would have been the lowest ever price for a CSP project in the world.
With that, Solarpack raised its total operating capacity in Chile at the time to 181 MW. In 2013 the Atacama 1 solar complex was proposed as a 110 MW solar thermal electric plant (the first in Latin America) and a 100 MW photovoltaic plant. The solar thermal plant will include 17.5 hours of thermal storage.
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