HIF Chile and Enel Green Power Chile (EGP) announced that the Faro del Sur wind power park will now undergo an Environmental Impact Study by the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) of the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica Region.
The project, which consider the installation of 65 latest-generation wind turbines, will have a capacity of 325 MW and required an investment of US$500 million. It also considers a 33-kV underground transmission line that stretches across 12.1 kilometers, in order to supply renewable energy to the future HIF Chile eFuels plant expected for development just north of the industrial zone of Cabo Negro, in Punta Arenas.
“This joint venture with EGP allows us to take a decisive step towards the future of eFuels based on green hydrogen and, with it, support our objective of accelerating the decarbonization of the planet. With the clean energy from Faro del Sur, we will be able to fuel our first industrial-scale plant with carbon neutral fuels. The environmental permit process is set to begin during the upcoming months,” says HIF Global President, César Norton.
Meanwhile, Fernando Meza, head of Renewable Energy Business Development from Enel Green Power, comments, “we are building a vision towards the future that is going to allow Enel and HIF to use green hydrogen to decarbonize industries, economic and commercial sectors that we currently cannot reach with electricity. Chile has great potential to become one of the world's leaders in this process, and for us at Enel, this is an extension of our pursuit of decarbonization.”
The first project of its kind in Latin America, Faro del Sur will consider a radar-assisted wind turbine braking system. This equipment allows for the turbines to be stopped in specific situations in the presence of birds and can be used to gather information to feed the system and identify situations of risk with increasing precision.
It is estimated that upon obtaining the Environmental Qualification Resolution, the wind park construction will take around 24 months. This phase will create an average of 310 jobs, with a peak of 640 jobs. During the operation phase, it will require an average of 34 direct operators.
