Wind and solar developer Mainstream Renewable Power has reached financial close for the first phase of its wholly-owned and fully-contracted megaproject - a 1.3 GW Andes Renovables wind and solar power generation platform in Chile.
The company has successfully raised US$580 million in debt to fund construction of phase one of what is one of Latin American’s biggest wind and solar generation platforms.
The financing has been provided by a consortium of six banks: CaixaBank, DNB, KfW IPEX-Bank, Natixis, SMBC and Societe Generale. A seventh bank, Banco Santander, provided a VAT facility.
The 571 megawatt (MW) first phase of Andes Renovables – called Cóndor – is comprised of three wind and one solar PV generation assets. Construction has already commenced, and the assets will reach commercial operation in 2021. They will generate enough sustainable electricity to power 680,000 Chilean homes and will displace 656,000 metric tonnes of CO2 each year.
The new wind farms will be built by Sacyr Industrial and Elecnor, with Vestas, Nordex Acciona and Siemens Gamesa supplying the wind turbines. Sterling & Wilson were selected to build the Río Escondido solar farm, while grid connection works will be carried out by Transelec, CGE, HMV and Siemens. All four main power transformers for the projects will be supplied by the Swiss ABB Group.
Below is the full list of Condor projects:
Enel, through its renewable subsidiary Enel Green Power Chile, began the construction of its new solar photovoltaic (PV) plant, Campos del Sol in Chile. With approximately 382 MW of installed capacity, the facility is the largest solar plant currently under construction in the country. The project, which is located 60 km northeast of Copiapó, Atacama Region, will involve a total investment of around 320 million US dollars.
Read moreSonnedix, a global solar independent power producer, has announced the start of the construction of Sonnedix Atacama Solar, a 171 MWp solar PV plant located in the Pica district in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
Read moreThe president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, inaugurated the Cardones-Polpaico transmission line on June 20, 2019. The 753-km long transmission line will transport up to 1,500 additional MW of renewable energy from the north of the country, where most of Chile´s renewable plants are located to the consumers in Chile´s south. The project involved a foreign investment of USD 1 billion.
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Canadian Solar Inc. has announced it has completed the sale of an 18 MWp portfolio of solar power projects in Chile to Sonnedix.
Read moreAcciona has signed a contract to supply 100% renewable electricity to the two main facilities of LATAM Airlines Group, the biggest airline group in Latin America, from September this year.
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