The government of Chile has presented a coal exit plan - agreed by power producers Engie, Enel, AES Gener and Colbun - that aims to close all coal-fired power plants by 2040 and to make the power generation sector carbon-neutral by 2050. The eight oldest coal-fired power plants will be shut down by 2024: four units are located in Tocopilla (413 MW), two in Puchuncavi (Las Ventanas, 307 MW), one in Iquique and one in Coronel. Working groups will be created every five years to establish new closure schedules through 2040. This 2040 target is earlier than a previous proposal (February 2018) to phase out coal-fired generation by 2050.
In 2018, the last 28 coal-fired power plants accounted for 17% of Chile's installed power capacity (over 4 GW out of 24 GW) but for nearly 40% of the country's power generation (29 TWh in 2018). The share of renewables has been rising since 2013, from 36% (including biomass) to nearly 47% in 2018, as wind power generation increased sixfold and solar generation nearly 600-fold. Chile expects renewables to cover 70% of the power mix in 2030 and to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 30% by this date.
Interested in Global Energy Research?
Enerdata's premium online information service provides up-to-date market reports on 110+ countries. The reports include valuable market data and analysis as well as a daily newsfeed, curated by our energy analysts, on the oil, gas, coal and power markets.
This user-friendly tool gives you the essentials about the domestic markets of your concern, including market structure, organisation, actors, projects and business perspectives.