{"id":44130,"date":"2014-07-07T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=44130"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:42","slug":"chile-to-build-largest-solar-farm-in-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/07\/chile-to-build-largest-solar-farm-in-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Chile to Build Largest Solar Farm in Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"

A large solar power plant is coming to\u00a0Chile\u2019s Atacama Desert, and the U.S. is providing financial support to make it happen.<\/p>\n

Tempe, AZ-based First Solar<\/a> will construct the 141-megawatt Luz del Norte\u00a0plant with the aid of\u00a0a loan guarantee of up to $230 million from the\u00a0Overseas Private Investment Corp., the U.S. government\u2019s financial development institution, the company announced<\/a>. The loan guarantee partly arises from President Barack Obama\u2019s desire to work with Chile on expanding the clean energy futures for both nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re both very interested in energy and how we can transition to a clean energy economy,\u201d Obama told The Associated Press<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll be announcing some collaborations, including the facilitation of a construction of a major solar plant inside of Chile that can help meet their energy needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chile<\/a>

Chile hopes to increase its renewable energy capacity to 20 percent of power generation by 2025. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock<\/p><\/div>\n

Obama spent time with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet earlier this week to begin talks of making a stronger connection between the two countries. The U.S. is already the largest lender to Chile,\u00a0having approved nearly $900 million of loan guarantees for six renewable energy generation projects in Chile\u00a0in just over a year. The International Finance Corp. also approved a\u00a0$60 million\u00a0loan for\u00a0Luz del Norte.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Latin American region has a growing need for innovative and efficient energy solutions right now,\u201d said\u00a0Tim Rebhorn, senior vice president of the Americas\u00a0for\u00a0First Solar. \u201cThis investment support from OPIC and IFC is instrumental in bringing the project in\u00a0Chile\u00a0to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Atacama Desert receives some of the planet\u2019s steadiest concentrations of direct sunlight, according to First Solar. The country wants to increase renewable energy to 20 percent of its total power generation by 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Luz del Norte project is an important step in furthering solar power development in\u00a0Chile, where the potential for this clean, renewable resource is unrivaled,\u201d OPIC President and CEO\u00a0Elizabeth Littlefield said. \u201cOPIC is proud to support this investment in\u00a0Chile\u00a0while helping an innovative American company like\u00a0First Solar\u00a0expand its operations and create new markets for its products abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ecowatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A large solar power plant is coming to Chile\u2019s Atacama Desert, and the U.S. is providing financial support to make it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}