Zelestra plans 250 MW solar farm with four-hour battery in Chile

Zelestra Energy’s Rinconada Solar project, which has entered Chile’s Environmental Impact Assessment System, would include a 6.1-hectare BESS of an unspecified size at its proposed site in the west of the Metropolitan Region. The BESS would have four hours of energy storage capacity.

The proposed project would feature 385,336 bifacial monocrystalline photovoltaic modules, organized in 13,762 strings of 28 modules and mounted on north-south, single-axis trackers. Each module would have a unit power of 660 W and they would be distributed over 272 hectares or so.

The project would also include a 33 kV/220 kV booster substation and a 7.5 km, 220 kV high-voltage line. The evacuation line would feature overhead and underground sections and the connection point would be the Lo Aguirre Sectioning Substation.

With a projected lifespan of 35 years, the projected start date for Rinconada Solar is January 2029.

The construction phase of the proposed site would employ an average workforce of 250 with a maximum of 400. During the operational phase, the estimated workforce would be 10 to 20 and the closure and abandonment phase of the facility would require 100 to 200 workers.

From pv magazine LatAm.