Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
represents one of the largest undeveloped
geothermal areas of the world. Despite
Chile's good economic performance in the late 1980s and 1990s,
geothermal energy did not develop, and Chile has been surpassed by other
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
n countries such as
El Salvador and
Costa Rica in terms of geothermal development and technology. Currently, Chile has only one geothermal power plant.
The first geothermal explorations in Chile were carried out in 1908, by
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
living in the city of
Antofagasta
Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669.
After the Spanish American wars ...
, but it was not until 1968 that systematic exploration started in the north of the country. These later explorations occurred amidst a global wave of research and development of geothermal power. The explorations were carried out after an agreement between the Chilean Government and the
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
. State agency
CORFO
The Production Development Corporation (CORFO, from es, Corporación de Fomento de la Producción de Chile) is a Chilean governmental organization that was founded in 1939 by President Pedro Aguirre Cerda to promote economic growth in Chile. ...
(Production Development Corporation) created a comité to direct and carry out explorations in Chile's northern regions. These explorations ended in 1976 after the
military government headed by
Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
withdrew Chile from the cooperation program.
High oil prices, unreliability in gas imports from Argentina and a continuously growing electricity demand have led the Chilean governments to further promote new energy sources in the late 1990s and 2000s. New interest in geothermal energy resulted in 2000 in the promulgation of the
Law of Geothermal Concessions that regulates exploration and exploitation of geothermal resources.
[Alfredo Lahsen, Fabián Sepúlveda, Juan Rojas and Carlos Palacio]
Present Status of Geothermal Exploration in Chile
Proceedings World Geothermal Congress 2005
Cerro Pabellón power plant
As of , Cerro Pabellón is the only geothermal power plant in the country, the first in South America,
and the highest-altitude plant of its kind in the world, at 4,500
metres above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''.
The c ...
.
The facility, inaugurated in September 2017, is located in the
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert ( es, Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in th ...
, in the
Ollagüe
Ollagüe () or Ullawi () is a massive andesite stratovolcano in the Andes on the border between Bolivia and Chile, within the Antofagasta Region of Chile and the Potosi Department of Bolivia. Part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, it ...
district of
Antofagasta Region
The Antofagasta Region ( es, Región de Antofagasta, ) is one of Chile's sixteen first-order administrative divisions. The second-largest region of Chile in area, it comprises three provinces, Antofagasta, El Loa and Tocopilla. It is bordered t ...
. It is composed of two units with a gross
installed capacity
Nameplate capacity, also known as the rated capacity, nominal capacity, installed capacity, or maximum effect, is the intended full-load sustained output of a facility such as a power station, of 24 MW each, for a total capacity of 48 MW;
a third, 33 MW unit will be built.
It will be able to produce around 340 GWh per year once fully operational.
Cerro Pabellón is owned by Geotérmica del Norte, a
joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...
between
Enel Green Power Chile —the local unit of the Italian corporation Enel— and Chilean state-owned oil and gas company
Enap.
Exploration and projects
Chile's main areas of geothermal activity are located in the Andes of the
Far North and in the south-central areas of the country. Geothermal systems in Chile are associated with volcanoes, so areas lacking significant volcanism like
Magallanes Region
The Magallanes Region (), officially the Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena Region ( es, Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena), is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. It is the southernmost, largest, and second lea ...
or
Norte Chico have limited power producing capacity. The main areas with potential are, from north to south:
Puchuldiza,
Apacheta,
El Tatio-La Torta,
Calabozos,
Nevados de Chillán
Nevados de Chillán is a group of stratovolcanoes located in the Andes of Ñuble Region, Central Chile, and is one of the most active volcanoes in the region. It consists of three overlapping peaks, Cerro Blanco (Volcán Nevado) at the northwe ...
and
Cordón Caulle.
[
In 2005 the National Commission of Energy was considering the starting of three 100 ]MWe
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...
projects in the next 10 years,[ and in 2011 Energy Minister ]Rodrigo Álvarez Zenteno
Rodrigo Alejandro Álvarez Zenteno (born 30 July 1966) is a Chilean politician and lawyer who served as Minister of Energy during the first government of Sebastián Piñera
Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique OMCh (; born 1 Decembe ...
said Chile had the potential to produce between 6,000 and 112,000 megawatts of geothermal energy.
A project located in the concession area called San Gregorio, which is being explored by Geoglobal Energy Chile (GGE), is likely to be the first geothermal project to be completed in Chile. The site has potential for 75 MW, and the company submitted it's EIA Eia or EIA may refer to:
Medicine
* Enzyme immunoassay
* Equine infectious anemia
* Exercise-induced anaphylaxis
* Exercise-induced asthma
* External iliac artery
Transport
* Edmonton International Airport, in Alberta, Canada
* Erbil Internation ...
in March 2012, with a plan to come online in early 2016.
El Tatio
In September 2009, a failed prospecting drill for geothermal exploitation in the (1960's) Nº 10 well near the El Tatio area, by the Geotérmica del Norte consortium - formed by the Chilean state owned ENAP and Codelco
Codelco (''Corporación Nacional'' ''del'' ''Cobre de Chile'' or, in English, the National Copper Corporation of Chile) is a Chilean state-owned copper mining company. It was formed in 1976 from foreign-owned copper companies that were nationalise ...
Mining companies in association with Italian state owned ENEL
Enel S.p.A. is an Italian multinational manufacturer and distributor of electricity and gas. Enel, which originally stood for Ente nazionale per l'energia elettrica (National Electricity Board), was first established as a public body at the ...
- caused a 60-meter high artificial fumarole to develop, with the company unable to seal it for several weeks. The eruption of the fumarole was followed by strong subterranean noises, and a notable decrease of all but the most active geysers in the area.
This prompted Corema, Antofagasta Region
The Antofagasta Region ( es, Región de Antofagasta, ) is one of Chile's sixteen first-order administrative divisions. The second-largest region of Chile in area, it comprises three provinces, Antofagasta, El Loa and Tocopilla. It is bordered t ...
's Environmental Corporation to paralyze all prospecting activities in the zone on October 2, 2009. On October 4 Geotérmica del Norte announced that the fumarole was under control. The day before, a failed attempt to close the well led to strong subterranean noises and Carabineros had to evacuate tourists and the protesters that had gathered at the location.
The exploration of El Tatio is controversial, because the area is a major tourist attraction
A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement.
Types
Places of natural ...
. The site receives over 100.000 visitors per year, and is the principal attraction of nearby San Pedro de Atacama
San Pedro de Atacama is a Chilean town and commune in El Loa Province, Antofagasta Region. It is located east of Antofagasta, some 106 km (60 mi) southeast of Calama and the Chuquicamata copper mine, overlooking the Licancabur volcano. ...
.
The town's mayor ( alcalde), Sandra Berma, condemned the ecological impact of the operation and stressed that the geysers are in an indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
zone that "our people put value on and ur peopleshow to the world".
Tolhuaca-Curacautín
Since 2007 the Chilean company of American capital Geotermia del Pacífico is exploring a concession right near the town of Curacautín for building a geothermal power plant
Geothermal power is electrical power generated from geothermal energy. Technologies in use include dry steam power stations, flash steam power stations and binary cycle power stations. Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in 2 ...
with support of CORFO
The Production Development Corporation (CORFO, from es, Corporación de Fomento de la Producción de Chile) is a Chilean governmental organization that was founded in 1939 by President Pedro Aguirre Cerda to promote economic growth in Chile. ...
. Geotermia del Pacífico's studies show that two geothermal fields near Curacautín could be used for energy production with combined capacity of supplying 36,000 homes in 2010. One of the geothermal areas to be developed are located close to the Tolhuaca hotsprings and the other in Río Blanco Springs.CHILE COULD HAVE GEOTHERMAL ENERGY BY 2010
Santiago Times
Law of Geothermal Concessions
The Law of Geothermal Concessions (Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
: ''Ley de Concesiones de Energía Geotérmica'') is a Chilean law that regulates geothermal energy since 2000. The law deals with geothermal concessions, tenders, security, ownership relations the role of the state in relation to geothermal energy. It is established that any Chilean or legal person
In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for ...
established according to Chilean laws may request, or participate in a tender for a geothermal concession.
According to the law superficial ownership and exploitation rights are distinct. Concession rights are divided into exploration and exploitation ones, and the general geometry of concessions are established. The law does not deal with geothermal water being used for health-care or touristic purposes. The law, Nº 19.657, was published in the Diario Oficial on January 7 of 2000.[
]
See also
* Renewable energy in Chile
*Solar power in Chile
In 2022 Chile produced about 18% of its electricity from solar power, up from 7% in 2018. Chile produces the highest percentage of its electricity from solar in the world. As of year end 2018, it had 2137 MW of solar PV capacity. In July 2020 in ...
* Renewable energy by country
References
External links
National Energy Commission
Energy information Chile
Mining Ministry
Energy generation projects in Chile
"Law of Geothermal Concessions"
{{Renewable energy by country
Geothermal energy in Chile