Mainstream finances 571MW wind and solar PV in Chile

Mainstream Renewable Power has reached financial close on the 571MW first phase of a 1.3GW wind and solar PV cluster in Chile, three years after it secured the necessary power deals at auction.

by Craig Richard 5 November 2019

Mainstream will supply power from Condor under a contract secured in Chile's power tender in 2016 (pic credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The 571MW Condor complex will consist of three wind farms and a solar PV array spread across south and central Chile, and will be the first stage of Mainstream's Andes Renovables project.

Six banks — CaixaBank, DNB, KfW, IPEX-Bank, Natixis, SMBC and Societe Generale — provided $580 million to finance Condor’s construction. A seventh, Banco Santander, provided a VAT facility.

Mainstream claimed the deal is one of Latin America’s largest renewable energy debt financing agreements this year.

Siemens Gamesa (157MW), Vestas (185MW) and Nordex Acciona (84MW) will supply turbines for the three wind farms.

Engineering firms Sacyr Industrial and Elecnor will build the three projects, Transelec, CGE, HMV and Siemens will connect them to the grid, and ABB will supply the four main power transformers for the complex.

Construction has already started and commercial operations are expected in 2021.

The entire Andes Renovables project will cost about $1.7 billion and its second and third phases, Huemul and Copihue, are due online in 2021 and 2022.

Mainstream secured a 20-year contract to supply 3.37TWh of firm power from 2021 in Chile’s technology-neutral auction in 2016 — 27% of the total allocated output.

The Irish developer’s CEO Andy Kinsella said financial close for the two final phases and the start of construction is expected "in the coming months".