Acciona Energia expects to double its operational renewable energy capacity in Latin America by 2020. Specifically, its renewables capacity will grow to over 2 GW, all owned and operated by the company.
Acciona Energia currently owns 897 MW of wind and solar photovoltaic power capacity in Chile, Mexico and Costa Rica. In the last trimester of this year, another 700 MW will be under construction and will come online in 2018 and 2019. In addition, other projects in advanced stages of development will be completed in 2020.
In the last quarter of this year, Acciona will construct the 183 MW San Gabriel wind farm in La Araucanía, Chile, to cover the supply of 506 GWh awarded to the company by the Chilean Energy Commission in August 2016.
According to the company, the renewables sector in Chile offers some of the best renewable energy prospects in Latin America. Citing the International Energy Agency, Acciona says Chile could reach a 50% share of renewable energy (including conventional hydroelectric power) in its energy mix in just five years (2022), compared with 39% in 2016. This will be done with 5.2 additional GW of non-conventional renewable energies expected to come online in that period, according to Acciona.
“Chile meets all the conditions to be a leader in the development of renewable energy in the world, and our El Romero Solar plant is a perfect example of it,” said Jose Manuel Entrecanales, president of Acciona Energia, at the recent groundbreaking ceremony for the 246 MW El Romero solar PV plant, located in Chile’s Atacama Desert. “What has been termed as non-conventional renewable energies today are, in fact, the energies that are going to become the conventional ones because they will be the ones that are imposed on all other generation technologies.”
