The Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) has signed a $30m corporate loan facility with Enel Green Power Chile to finance exploratory works for what could be the first geothermal power project in South America—the Cerro Pabellon geothermal power plant in Chile.

The loan will be funded by the Clean Technology Fund Loan (CTF), administered by the IIC.

The project, located in the Atacama Desert at an altitude of over 4,500 meters above sea level, consists of three power plants with a combined capacity of 75 MW, an 80-kilometer transmission line and other associated facilities. The loan will finance drilling costs of the exploratory phase, when other sources of financing are typically unavailable.

Unlike other intermittent renewable energy sources, the baseload electricity produced by geothermal power plants aligns with Chile’s high-energy consuming mining sector. The project will support the country to reduce its energy dependence on foreign oil and its vulnerability to oil price fluctuations. Cerro Pabellon will also have a positive impact on the environment, displacing the equivalent of approximately 232,761 tons of carbon emissions per year.