Solarcentury has released a time lapse video of our largest completed project to date in Latin America. Enrique de Ramon, Managing Director of Solarcentury Latin America, explains that:
“In 2016, Energía Cerro El Morado S.A. selected Solarcentury to design and build the ‘Doña Carmen’ solar project. It’s in La Ligua, in the Valparaiso region of central Chile. We were selected for a number of reasons. These included our competitive pricing, our proven track record of almost 20 years building large solar projects, and our extensive project development experience.
This large 40MWp system includes over 120,000 solar modules, installed in just under six months. It will produce enough energy to power the equivalent of approximately 21,600 homes. The project marks another milestone in the development of Chile’s solar industry and it underlines the central importance of Chile in the growing Latin American solar market.
In total, Solarcentury has been working on this project for 18 months, including a team of around 20 people from the company, plus local construction companies and suppliers. This 18 month timeframe included an extensive pre-construction development period to get the design, procurement, environmental and regulatory requirements exactly right.
We started construction in November 2016 and we’re delighted to have delivered the project on time, with grid connection meeting the target date of May 2017. Wherever possible, we used local materials in constructing the site. All project milestones agreed with the owner have been met along the way, often to very tight deadlines.
The Doña Carmen project is structured as a power purchase agreement (PPA) over 15 years, to supply very competitively priced solar generation to several distribution companies in Chile. 60% of the solar power generated by the system will be sold under this PPA agreement, and 40% will be sold to the spot market.
Right now, this is Solarcentury’s largest Latin American project to date and we’re very proud of it. With larger Solarcentury projects now under development and with Chile and other Latin American countries accelerating their solar programmes, that accolade won’t last long, again emphasising the increasing importance of Chile to the international solar market.”
