MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile wind farms to promote energy independence

President Michelle Bachelet announced Tuesday that Chile will aspire to be completely energy independent within two years.

Speaking at the Enapyme business conference in Santiago, Bachelet acknowledged that the shortfall in promised Argentine gas is pushing the nation to seek out alternative energy sources.

While Bachelet did not focus specifically on the wind energy alternative, groundwork has already been laid by private and university groups who will most certainly lobby to make wind energy an important part of Chile's energy independence effort.

The town of Coyhaique in southern Chile, for example, could provide a glimpse into what an energy independent future would be like. There, three immense wind generators provide for the energy needs of 19,000 families in Region XI. "Alto Baguales" is the only industrial scale wind farm in Chile, but that number may multiply as businesses and researchers scope out new sites from Arica to Punta Arenas.

Juan Walker, a representative of the Danish company Vestas that manufactured the three generators, is optimistic about Chile's wind energy future: "Chile has the potential to produce 5,000 megawatts of wind energy within a timeframe of ten to twenty years," he said.

Vestas plans to set up 50-megawatt wind farms in Chile's Regions IV and VII beginning 2008. Still, in comparison with countries like Germany, where 16,500 wind farms produce five percent of the country's energy, these wind farms will not do much to significantly address the nation's energy needs.

Infrastructure and knowledge deficiencies prevent greater reliance on wind energy: Stanford University only recently produced the first wind map of Chile, and the results of prior studies on wind energy potential yielded only inexact estimates.

Perhaps more importantly, southern regions like Aisén and Magallanes, where high winds are the rule, are too isolated from electric plants to make wind farms feasible.

"We have high winds in the entire region, but we are 2,000 kilometers from the interconnected system (of electric plants)" said Arturo Kunstmann of Magallanes University, who added that the distance will decrease to 1,000 kilometers with the coming of new hydroelectric plants.

Meanwhile, the demand for energy in Chile grows from six to eight percent every year, a doubling of demand every ten years. Long before the Argentine gas crisis alerted Chile to the need for greater energy independence, the government began surveying renewable energy sources, like wind power, to address this voracious energy consumption.

The National Energy Commission (CNE), working together with the Corporation for the Promotion of Production (Corfa), which supports business enterprise in Chile, began to chart out the future of wind power in 1992. This first inquiry failed to produce a blueprint of wind energy in Chile, but the two organizations continued to work together, subsidizing private research projects.

"These projects are not small, some could reach up to 80 megawatts," said Corfa strategist Orlando Jiménez. "It all depends on what they discover."

The National Environmental Commission (CONAMA) also included wind energy in its broader study of energy and the environment, listing seven projects that are approved or under review. One is a 372 million US dollars investment by the Spanish company Acciona Energía Chile S.A. Endesa Eco hopes to invest another 17 million US dollars into wind power in Region IV.

Other potential wind farm sites identified by CNE include the Calama Zone in Region II, a number of islands and coastal areas that register high winds, and open planes such as those found in Patagonia in Region XI and XII.

For now, the only wind farm in Chile outside of Alto Baguales is a small-scale pilot project on the island of Chiloé in southern Chile, providing energy to 79 families and three town centres for close to six years.

But the future looks promising. "Just one mini wind farm could supply energy to Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales, and Porvenir," said Walker, whose company represents the first of what may be numerous private investments in Chile's wind farms, and in turn, its future energy independence.

By Renata Stepanov The Santiago Times - News about Chile