Statkraft enters Chile wind with triple acquisition

Norway's Statkraft plans to invest $180 million building three wind farms in central Chile.

by Tom Azzopardi 11 September 2019

Chile has just over 1.6GW of operating wind capacity, but is set to almost double in the near future (pic: Goldwind)

The Norwegian state-owned energy firm bought the 30MW Cardonal, 27.6MW Manantiales and 51.75MW Cerrillos projects from developer Torsa Chile.

All three sites are located near the city of Litueche, 146km south-east of Santiago, and have been granted environmental permits.

Statkraft owns hydrolectric plants in Chile, but this move marks its entry to the wind market.

The company plans to complete construction of the wind farms by 2022 when they are expected to generate 300GWh of electricity annually.

To minimise their visual impact, the farms will be linked using underground cables.

As of the end of July, there was 1,611MW of wind capacity operating in Chile, with another 907MW under construction or commissioning tests.