Clean Capital Energy kicked off construction of the “La Huella” ground-mounted project in Chile at the end of November in a ground-breaking ceremony. Participants of the official ceremony included numerous senators, members of parliament and mayors from the region, alongside project managers of the CCE Group and of Spanish construction group OHL (Obrascón Huarte Lain), who are tasked with the project’s construction. The ceremony kick starts the approx. one-year implementation phase for the 87-megawatt plant, which is expected to generate around 220 gigawatt hours of electricity annually from the fourth quarter of 2020. The photovoltaic system, equipped with glass-glass modules and single-axis tracking, will be installed over a total surface area of 145 hectares in the country’s Coquimbo region, some 400 kilometres north of Santiago. Alongside “La Huella”, the CCE Group has secured three further PV projects in Chile with a combined output of some 230 MWp, which it plans to bring online by 2022. The CCE Group has been operating in Chile since as early as 2015, funding the development of a 500-MW portfolio that has already given rise to two 100-megawatt plants.

Chile – the world’s highest PV yield

“We are extremely proud of this project and are now looking forward to starting construction on site, the La Huella plant being as it is such an important milestone in our Chile operations,” explains CCE Group Managing Director Martin Dürnberger. Unlike most projects in Chile, the “La Huella” project is being financed without the banks and, for now, without an electricity supply contract in place. To implement the approx. 300-MW project portfolio, a joint venture was established with a German pension fund. “In a commercial sense, this is clearly the better solution,” explains Mr Dürnberger, adding: “This CCE project is yet another important step forward in expanding solar energy yield in Chile, a region enjoying the greatest solar irradiation on earth and consequently the highest PV yield.”