Chile to build wind farm in Atacama Desert with US$850 million investment
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Horizonte Wind Farm will be built by Chilean company Colbún and will have a capacity of 778 MW, the Ministry of Energy said in a press release.
The project contemplates the installation of 140 wind turbines on 8,000 hectares in the Atacama Desert in the region of Antofagasta (some 1,000 km north of Santiago), considered the country’s mining capital.
The wind farm is “intended to become the largest in Latin America” and “will generate energy equivalent to the consumption of over 700,000 homes,” the note added.
The project, which will begin construction at the end of this year and be operational in 2024, will prevent the emission of 1,200,000 tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to removing over 300,000 cars from circulation annually or planting 2,400,000 trees.
Once in operation, it will increase wind power generation capacity by 70% in Antofagasta, where copper mining industry is concentrated in Chile, the world’s largest copper producer.
“We are changing from a country that generated thermal and polluting energy to one that generates clean and renewable energy,” said Minister of Energy and Mines Juan Carlos Jobet.
In the Atacama Desert, the world’s driest, other clean energy facilities are already in operation, such as Cerro Dominador, Latin America’s first solar thermal power plant.
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