Sonnedix has acquired Chilean power producer ARCO Energy and its portfolio of 215 MW of operating utility-scale renewable energy assets and 75 MW of distributed generation. The deal marks Sonnedix’s largest renewable energy transaction outside of Europe, since 2017. With this acquisition, Sonnedix enters the wind generation space in Chile, where they have been present as a solar power producer since 2015. The move boosts the company’s asset base to more than 1 GW of capacity in Chile, and 7.4 GW globally.
After Brazil, Chile has emerged as the most attractive market for renewable energy investments in the Latin American region. While the country’s solar energy sector has dominated its renewables space, driven primarily by incentives and market mechanisms under the PMGD scheme for distributed projects, wind energy assets have become more attractive in recent years.
Since 2021, $1bn+ of wind projects have been acquired in the country, primarily by Innergex, AES and ENGIE. Repsol is another major player in Chile’s wind sector, having acquired ~800MW of primarily under-development wind projects in 2020. Operational wind projects in the country are observed to sell power largely through bilateral contracts with large corporate customers, such as mining corporations and tech companies including Microsoft and Google. Earlier this month, a senior executive from Mainstream Renewables highlighted that major LatAm markets such as Brazil and Chile are offering record low prices under regulated power contracts awarded to renewable projects. This trend is driving corporate power procurement in the region, as evidenced by the preferred market mechanisms of most of the established operators in the area.
The above analysis is proprietary to Enerdatics’ energy analytics team, based on the current understanding of the available data. The information is subject to change and should not be taken to constitute professional advice or a recommendation.
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