Developed by Tinguiririca Energía, a joint venture between Australia’s Pacific Hydro and Norway’s SN Power, the projects have a combined capacity of 310MW and required an investment of more than US$800M.
Development of the two projects is seen as a benchmark for energy development in Chile, with the last run-of-river project in the country placed into operation over 10 years.
“Chile has an ambitious goal of combining an economic growth of 6% per year, while at the same time reduce the country`s CO2 emissions by twenty percent by 2020,” said Piñera in his inauguration speech on 26 October. “In order to reach these goals, we need 12,000MW of new energy capacity installed by the end of this decade”.
More than 14 thousand people benefited from the projects construction through direct and indirect jobs, contributing to the regional, local and national development, SN Power said in a statement.
In March 2006, La Higuera was registered for the Clean Development Mechanism, becoming the first run-of river hydro power plant in the country and the world’s largest to obtain that status under the Kyoto Protocol.
