Photo: Marcelo MascareñoAysen is the location of Chile’s oldest wind project, Alto Baguales, but Los Lagos has the most potential future activity according to the Ministry of Energy’s December 2015 report on development activity. With 3.4 MW of rated capacity, Alto Baguales supplies 55% of Coyhaique’s power while the remainder is generated from diesel. Due to the fact that the region is connected to the SIC grid where projects can access competitive power tenders in unregulated markets, Los Lagos has seen an explosion of wind energy project planning. The region currently has almost 840MW of wind projects in the development pipeline.
Generated by harnessing the power of moving waves and shifting tides, marine energy is perhaps the most exciting source of non-conventional energy in Patagonia. According to a recent study commissioned by the British Embassy in Santiago, Chile’s 4,000 kilometers of coastline and consistent waves could provide more total wave energy than even its world renowned solar resources.
Although the Los Lagos region has the most consistent and powerful waves in the country, the extreme south with its particular ocean geography and relatively extreme tidal differentials represents the greatest opportunity for tidal energy. According to the same study, the Straights of Magellan followed by the Chacao channel, which separates Chiloé from mainland Chile, are the areas of greatest tidal energy potential in Chile. Owing to the fact that the technology is still pre-commercial, activity has focused mainly on the identification of sites and measurement of potential by various research universities.
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Photo: Atlantic ResourcesThe process of capturing the energy stored in plant and organic matter is perhaps the world’s oldest renewable technology. When the forest-to-wood product value chain is managed according to environmentally responsible harvesting plans and standards, it creates opportunities for forest and sawmill residues to be sustainably used as fuel for carbon-neutral power. Compared to other non-conventional energy sources such as the wind and sun that produce electricity intermittently, the great advantage of biomass power is capacity factors approaching 90%, allowing biomass to serve as a base load power. According to research performed by Chile’s forestry authority, CONAF, the regions of Los Lagos, Aysen, and Magallanes possess nearly 4.5 million hectares of productive forest capable of sustainably providing over 1,650 MW of electricity through careful forest management. Despite this potential, there are no biomass power projects in Patagonia and many people tend to view biomass as only a source of firewood.
The forestry company Monte Alto Forestal is currently seeking to develop a 10MW biomass power project on the outskirts of Puerto Natales. Employing $480,000 in financing provided by the United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) due to the project’s potential environmental, social and economic benefits to the region, in February 2016, the company completed a feasibility study that demonstrated the project’s technical and economic viability. The findings indicate that the project could decrease the region’s emission of carbon by nearly 35,000 metric tonnes per year while saving Chilean tax payers nearly $10 MM USD per year in avoided subsidies and decreased electricity prices. Perhaps more critically, it could serve as a template for the integration of other renewable energy projects in Magallanes, a region 99% dependent on fossil fuels.
Despite being Chile’s smallest region by population, Aysen is leading the way in the integration of renewables into its energy matrix. In 2015, Aysen derived 58% of its electricity from 25 MW of hydroelectric capacity in the region. In comparison to the megadams proposed by the now-defeated HydroAysen project, mini hydroelectric projects are less than 20MW in capacity and have much lighter impact on fragile river ecosystems. While the largest of Aysen’s projects is the 11MW Lago Atrevesado project 25 kilometers from Coyhaique, the 3MW Monreal project offers an example of how these small projects fit into the larger story of mitigating climate change. Harnessing power from the La Paloma river and delivering it to Aysen’s subsytem, Monreal applied for and received carbon credits through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). With the most stringent standards for verifying the impact of the project, the CDM credits certify that Monreal is truly offsetting the emission of 4,786 metric tonnes per year of carbon dioxide.
Photo: AceraWhile these case studies present an optimistic vision of Chilean Patagonia’s potential role in the fight against global warming, there is much to be done to bring that vision to reality. In Aysen and Magallanes, 78% of all electricity generated in 2015 came from diesel and natural gas [3], generating over 200,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. In Magallanes alone, nearly every megawatt-hour of electricity is derived from fossil fuels, contributing to the vast majority of the region’s carbon footprint. To meet the ambitious goals the administration has set out for incorporating renewables into the energy matrix, policy makers need to scrutinize the fossil fuel subsidies that distort electricity economics and to increase support for research that could lower the cost of promising new sources of energy such as marine energy. Given the region’s sheer abundance of sustainable energy resources and dispersed centers of energy demand, Chilean Patagonia could become an ideal proving ground for distributed, renewable energy systems.
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