South America has a lot of sun and a lot of space, and solar energy has grown from a small player to the main driver of generation growth in several countries in the region . Today we look at the grids of Chile, Brazil, and Colombia, all of which have already made solar a cornerstone of their generation or are working to do so in the near future.
Due to the speed of solar PV deployment and the particular geography of the country , Chile is at a crossroad. It’s losing a lot of energy in the sunniest portion of the day because the grid is no longer able to transport the amount of electricity being produced, and yet, it’s deploying even more solar generation in the years to come.
Brazil already has two operational HVDC lines , so it should be able to build the infrastructure to transport cheap solar energy from the sunny center of the country to the populated south and southeast.Colombia’s geography is a paradise of high mountains and steep slopes, a curse and a blessing that has made the country highly dependent on hydroelectric generation.
Now, unlike Chile and Brazil, Colombia is a latecomer to solar energy, with only 9 MW deployed prior to 2019. Solar deployment was delayed during the pandemic, amounting to only 700 MW last month, but the auctioned farms are still being built and expected to come online in three years at most. As of April 2024, solar generation accounts for some 6% of electricity, but due to the “dependable energy auctions” I mentioned earlier, capacity is expected to increase eightfold in the next three years. Large wind projects are also expected to come online in the following years , and it’s expected most generation should become renewable by the end of the decade, even if fossil fuel plants are kept as part of generation capacity.