Batteries included: European developer planning 500MW Chile solar-storage incursion

Renewables developer Solek is joining the growing list of companies in Chile incorporating battery storage units into their clean energy projects, BNamericas was told.

The Czech Republic-based firm is working on a 500MW portfolio of proposed hybrid plants, CEO Zdeněk Sobotka said.

Against a backdrop of grid congestion, growing renewables penetration and price decoupling, companies are embracing storage technology to improve the economics of plants and reduce risk.

Solek, a major distributed generation player that is also poised to build its first utility-scale solar farm in Chile this year, aims to build three solar-storage plants, starting in 2024.

“We’re now looking at a new way of contributing to the energy market and that is utility-scale projects with batteries, as well as some PMGDs [small distributed generation] under the new stabilized price regime and also with batteries,” Sobotka said.

“In general, Chile’s energy metrics definitely need some type of storage, given the high [renewables] volatility. The only thing you can do is store and then inject.”

Other Chilean players embracing battery storage include Enel Chile, AES Andes and Colbún. 

In Chile, Solek – which is working with a Czech Republic battery storage technology startup that it acquired – has 207MW of renewables capacity in operation, a total expected to climb to 362MW by the end of the year.  

In parallel, Solek is preparing to enter Colombia, where it plans to have 300MW in operation within five years. An initial portfolio of 170MW, targeting the La Guajira peninsula, is in the environmental evaluation phase.

To find out more about the company’s projects and plans, including a pilot green hydrogen plant, read the full Q&A with Sobotka on Monday.