Cemento Polpaico and Colbún, Chile’s third-largest power generator, have developed the country’s largest private photovoltaic self-generation park at the Cerro Blanco plant in the municipality of Tiltil, Santiago Metropolitan Region. The project will enable Cemento Polpaico’s operations to run on 100 per cent renewable energy by combining solar generation with electricity supplied under a contract with Colbún.
The solar plant covers 12ha, has an installed capacity of 9.9MWp and is equipped with 15,000 bifacial solar panels.
The park generates around 20GWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the annual consumption of approximately 3000 households, and covers about 12 per cent of the electricity demand of Cemento Polpaico’s operations. According to the company’s 2024 inventory, the installation avoids approximately 1476tpa of CO2 equivalent emissions.
Felipe Ureta, manager of the Cemento Polpaico Division at Polpaico Soluciones, said the solar park forms part of a broader set of sustainability measures implemented by the company. These include waste co-processing initiatives and more efficient use of water resources in tailings ponds.
The initiative forms part of both companies’ sustainability strategies. In its sustainability impact report, Colbún reported that it has reduced its CO2 emissions factor by 41per cent since 2018, exceeding its initial target of a 30 per cent reduction. The power generator also said it currently avoids more than 1.6Mta of CO2 emissions through the operations of its customers.
