I am asked more frequently by foreign colleagues : Why doesn’t any solar power plant exist  in Chile?

It’s common knowledge in Chile that climate conditions for Solar Power are ideal in the Northern Atacama Desert. Even better than in California or Spain, where solar plants are actually installed. Is here any lack of vision or the fear of blame, if  it doesn’t work? 20 years before indeed (I can prove that), but nowadays there is no time to hesitate.  Therefore, Chilean’s President Sebastián Pineira, known as a modern and visioned leader, proclaimed during his recent annual governmental report  THE SUN as the most promising energy potential for Chile! [Parliament, Valparaiso, 21 of May 2011].

Exploraberg promotes all clean technologies for national energy supply. We invite our website users to read the white paper (in Spanish) from Xavier Martínez about global solar projects: “Como la energía solar conquista el mundo – a pesar de su elevado precio inicial”  This proposes the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) as preferable technology for Chile. There are more solar technologies available, but in Chile we have to include the high seismicity as risk factor, as in Japan, where high buildings are extremely expensive to construct. Economic reasons to freeze national solar projects is the opposite of the new way of  energy independancy, and has to be planned by the authorities within an industrialization program for the next decades.

Renewable energy in not only clean, it also generates identity and a common sence of participation amoung people. An old friend from India told me a couple of years ago: “Only the technology really wanted by the people will grow.” I think he must be right, because his one-man-made-company is now one of  the fastest growing energy firms for social solar cooking and heating.

Ref.: KaBe