Work begins on energy strategy plan for Chile’s Magallanes region

Work has started on an energy strategy plan for Chile’s windswept southern region Magallanes. 

Multiple gigawatts of green hydrogen projects, powered by windfarms, are proposed for the jurisdiction. 

The strategy plan, known as a PEER, will be used as an input in long-term energy planning.

Objectives include supporting territorial planning, an area deemed vital to helping unlock the jurisdiction’s green hydrogen potential.

“PEER is important and useful for the public sector as it strengthens the role of the State in matters of regional energy planning, in addition to increasing the certainties that the private sector requires for its development, achieving greater rapprochement with civil society that will be integrated early as a contribution to the identification of the key aspects to be considered in a regional energy planning process,” an energy ministry notice states.

Chile’s council of ministers for sustainability and climate change voted to submit to President Gabriel Boric, for strategic environmental review, PEERs. The process is due to end in December 2024, officials have said previously. A second PEER is planned for Antofagasta region, another potential green hydrogen development hub.

Chile has over 50 publicly announced green hydrogen projects in the feasibility or prefeasibility phase. Multiple pilot schemes are in operation, the biggest among them the Haru Oni e-fuels demonstration plant in Magallanes.

Overall, some US$155bn in green hydrogen project investment is estimated for Chile in 2025-2030, according to a recent forecast from state development agency Corfo. Engineering and studies work is underway, with the next phase for many involving permitting. 

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Chile’s national energy commission CNE has put out to tender a contract to conduct studies concerning service reliability and quality technical rules.

The work falls under the national electricity system’s energy transition process, CNE says.

Bids are due by 13 October.

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CNE has invited consumer associations to express their interest in participating in a public comments process related to a proposed contract price review.

Scheduled for November 10, the process is being held after Acciona Energía Chile Holding asked CNE to review prices in energy and capacity contracts corresponding to supply auction 2015/1.

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Claudio Seebach is due to step down next month as executive president of local power generation association Generadoras de Chile.

Seebach, who joined the association in 2015, will become dean of the faculty of engineering and science at the country's Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.

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Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez’s energy transition research hub Centra and the country's association of power traders Acen are due to hold a seminar on October 13 about electricity distribution and integration with electromobility.

The event will be streamed and held in person at the university's Presidente Errázuriz campus in Las Condes, Santiago, from 10am to 12pm local time.

Panelists are solar association Acesol executive director Darío Morales, energy ministry sustainable energy division chief Mauricio Riveros, Acen vice chair Vannia Toro, consultancy Grupo engieE managing partner Daniel Salazar, and Ignacio Santelices, who is sustainability manager at Fundación Chile and executive director of regional power distribution association Adelat.   

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