Meteocontrol and Ingetrace awarded the contract for the “Public Solar Rooftop Program” in Chile

The Chilean government continues to pursue its planned energy transition with the installation of 300 PV systems on top of public buildings. In collaboration with Ingetrace SPA, meteocontrol has won the call for tenders for monitoring the first 103 rooftop systems as part of the “Programa de Techos Solares Públicos (PTSP)”. The Augsburg-based PV service provider already supplied the cooperation partner in Santiago de Chile with 119 data loggers as well as sensors in December 2016. Therefore, meteocontrol has been able to bolster its presence in one of South America’s most important PV markets. The goal is to equip all 300 PV systems under the Public Solar Rooftop Program in Chile with a monitoring system and to monitor them centrally via an online platform by 2018. Together with its cooperation partner Ingetrace, meteocontrol has been awarded the contract for monitoring 103 PV systems on top of public buildings in North and Central Chile, which have a total capacity of approximately 3.3 MWp.

“From the beginning on, we have worked extremely well together”, explains Ingetrace Managing Director, Fernando de la Rosa. “We’re thrilled to have such an experienced and well-established company as meteocontrol on our side. Everyone involved in the project is benefiting from the collaboration, and the implementation process is running extremely smoothly, thanks in no small part to meteocontrol’s technical support.” meteocontrol is supplying the monitoring hardware and providing the portal as well as expertise. Ingetrace advises the ministry on the installation process and receives support from meteocontrol regarding the set up of the monitoring platform. The monitoring system enables the monitoring of all PV systems via the central platform and can therefore be assessed in direct comparison to one another, regardless of their built-in components. The system displays yield losses and immediately reports any malfunctions, and reporting is carried out automatically.

Thanks to its high level of solar irradiance, particularly in northern regions, Chile provides ideal conditions for solar power generation and is therefore one of the world’s top ten most attractive markets for renewable energy. With the quota law, the Chilean government laid the foundation for integrating renewable energy sources into the market in 2008. In 2015, the Ministry of Energy further specified the ambitious development targets: by 2035, the proportion of power generated from clean sources of energy should be 60%, and by 2050 it should even be 70%. “The Public Solar Rooftop Program represents a significant milestone for our company in terms of our market presence in Chile. With our product solutions, we intend to further promote the power generation transition taking place and improve supply reliability, while ensuring competitive costs”, says meteocontrol Managing Director, Martin Schneider. Solar power growth rates in Chile are already impressive: in 2015, solar power accounted for 2% of power generation with 741 MWp, and in 2017 it is expected to account for 8%.