Chile Considers Solar Energy to Help Power Mines

Chile, faced with an energy shortage that threatens to disrupt output at the world’s biggest copper mines, may tap solar energy to help avoid power rationing.

The government is considering a plan to install solar panels in the Atacama Desert, where more than a fifth of the world’s copper is mined, Energy Minister Marcelo Tokman said. Tokman and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will travel to Nevada next week to visit the world’s third-largest solar plant, which powers part of Las Vegas.
“With the current metal prices, mining companies can’t afford to be exposed to risks in the supply of electricity,” Tokman said yesterday in an interview at the Foreign Relations Ministry in Santiago. “Sooner rather than later, we are going to have solar-powered energy in the north.”

The installations could help ease an energy shortage in northern Chile caused when Argentina started reducing natural- gas shipments in 2004. It would also help Bachelet reach her goal of developing enough alternative-energy sources to generate 15 percent of new supplies in Chile, which imports almost three-quarters of its power.

Still, solar energy is unlikely to solve the problem, Tokman said. Spanish energy company Acciona SA says the 182,000 parabolic mirrors at its Solar One plant in Nevada, which Tokman will visit next week, produce 64 megawatts of energy. Chilean utility GasAtacama SA generates 780 megawatts for the northern grid.

Bloomberg