FC for second phase of 1.3 GW wind and solar project in Chile

Mainstream Renewable Power has reached financial close for the second phase of its wholly-owned and fully-contracted 1.3 GW Andes Renovables wind and solar power generation platform in Chile.

The company has successfully raised US$620 million in debt to fund construction of phase two of what is one of Latin American’s biggest wind and solar generation platforms. This brings to US$1.25 billion raised to date by the Andes Renovables platform.

Senior financing has been provided by a consortium of five banks: IDB Invest, KfW IPEX-Bank, DNB, CaixaBank and MUFG, and is one of the largest renewable energy debt financing deals undertaken in the world this year. A sixth bank, Santander, provided a VAT facility.

The 630 megawatt (MW) second phase of Andes Renovables – called Huemul – is comprised of three onshore wind and two solar PV generation assets:

• Puelche Sur wind farm (156 MW) in Los Lagos
• Llanos del Viento wind farm (160 MW) in Antofagasta
• Ckani wind farm (109 MW) in Antofagasta
• Pampa Tigre solar PV project (100 MW) in Antofagasta
• Valle Escondido solar project (105 MW) in Atacama

All five assets are in pre-construction and will reach commercial operation between 2021 and 2022. They will generate enough sustainable electricity to power 781,000 Chilean homes and will displace 744,200 metric tonnes of CO2 each year.

Andes Renovables is a US$1.8 billion, three-phase wind and solar generation platform comprised of seven onshore wind and three solar PV generation assets. The first phase Cóndor reached financial close in November 2019 and is already over 30% complete.

The build-out has created nearly 1,200 jobs across three regions of the country and has safely continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic under strict sanitary and social distancing protocols. The next and final phase, Copihue, is comprised of one further wind asset with a 100 MW capacity and is on track to reach financial close in H1 2021.

Vestas, Nordex Group and Siemens Gamesa are supplying the wind turbines and the wind farm assets will be built by Sacyr Industrial, SEMI and Elecnor. The solar PV assets will be built by Sterling & Wilson and Metka-Egn. All five main power transformers for the projects will be supplied by Hitachi ABB Power Grids. Grid connection works will be carried out by Transelec, Inprolec and Isotron-Siemens consortium.