Minera El Tesoro and Soitec Solar build solar pilot plant in South America

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Greentech Lead America: Minera El Tesoro (MET), in partnership with Soitec Solar, is building the first pilot plant in South America with Soitec Solar technology.

Soitec Solar is installing four of its highly efficient concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems at a site in Chile’s Sierra Gorda district to provide renewable energy for a remote copper-mining operation.

The four CX-S420 systems installed for MET use Soitec Solar’s Concentrix CPV technology and two-axis tracking systems to generate a total installed capacity of 64 kWp.

In addition to providing electricity for the site’s data center, this installation serves as an important research and demonstration platform for MET using innovative and environmentally friendly solar technologies, designed to reduce carbon footprints and optimize energy costs in hot, arid locations with high direct normal irradiation (DNI).

To this regard, MET and Soitec signed a memorandum of understanding to leverage the experience gained from this pilot plant to facilitate their respective plans of developing additional projects with CPV technology in Chile.

According to Fabio Mondini, vice president, geographical expansion with Soitec’s Solar Division, Chile’s energy demand is growing and should lead to a doubling of the installed capacity in the next few years, particularly in the northern part of the country, which has the highest DNI and strong mining-sector electricity demand.

Chile has the world’s highest solar irradiation and is expected to be the site of some of the world’s first large-scale solar projects.

In 2012, Chile’s renewable energy agency Centro de Energias Renovables (CER) published its National Energy Strategy ENE 2012-2030, in which it announced the approval of more than 3.1 GW in solar-energy projects to address issues such as possible power shortages, price increases for fossil fuels, Chile’s enormous economic growth and increasing demand for electricity.

editor@greentechlead.com

 

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