Acciona Energía will invest $343m in the construction of El Romero Solar photovoltaic plant in Chile.

El Romero Solar

Said to be the the biggest photovoltaic plant in Latin America, the El Romero Solar plant will have an installed capacity of around 246.6MW.

Construction on the project will begin soon, with plans to commission the facility in mid-2017.

Acciona Energía CEO Rafael Mateo said: "the start of construction work on El Romero Solar is a very significant milestone, one that will enable us to respond to our commitment to supply renewables-based power in Chile and strengthen our role in the country’s energy sector.

"We are very pleased to contribute to the availability of clean, quality energy in Chile through what will be our biggest photovoltaic plant in the world".

Located in the municipality of Vallenar, 645 km north of the capital Santiago, the plant will feature 777,360 polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic modules, which will be installed on static metal structures which, if arranged in a line, would have a total length of over 111km.

The solar plant will generate close to 505GWh of clean energy that will be enough to power around 245,000 Chilean homes annually.

The power produced at the plant will be used by the company to cater a large part of 600GWh of clean electricity, which it committed to supply to distribution concession holders in the Central Interconnected System, starting from 2018 onward.

It will also be used for other renewables-based electricity supplies in the country.

Besides El Romero Solar, Acciona Energía also owns the 45 MW Punta Palmeras wind farm in Chile.

Located in the region of Coquimbo, the Punta Palmeras wind farm comprises 15 units of 3MW wind turbines using Acciona Windpower technology.

Colbún, a utility company in the country, will purchase the power produced by the wind farm, under a long-term supply contract.

Additionally, the company built the phase I of the 7.2MW Pampa-Camarones photovoltaic plant in the country for electric power company E-CL.

The photovoltaic facility has the capacity to generate around 18.1GWh of clean electricity annually.


Image: The El Romero Solar plant will feature 777,360 polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic modules. Photo: courtesy of Acciona Energía.