Large battery storage facility to be built at former coal-fired power plant in Chile

Sites of decommissioned conventional power plants can continue to serve new generation sources, particularly thanks to the existing infrastructure for connecting their output to the grid. In addition to renewable or gas-fired power sources, such sites can also offer opportunities for building battery storage facilities. This is expected to be the case at a former coal-fired power plant in Chile, where French company Engie plans to build a battery storage facility. Among other things, it should help make use of curtailed renewable generation, which is growing sharply in the north of the country.

The former Tocopilla coal-fired power plant, located in the north of the South American country of Chile, is set to become home to a new battery storage facility. It will have an output of 116 MW and a capacity of 660 MWh, enough for just under six hours of operation at full output. The project is expected to consist of around 240 containers of lithium-ion batteries, according to Argus, with construction due to begin in June. In addition to suitable land, the former power plant site offers infrastructure in the form of a connection to the transmission grid.

The $180 million project is intended to help make use of renewable energy that is being curtailed. Since the start of this year alone, the volume of curtailed generation from solar and wind farms has reached almost 1700 GWh, according to Argus. That is a 250% increase compared with the same period last year.

Engie shut down the original coal-fired power plant, which had an installed capacity of 268 MW, in September 2022. A gas-fired power plant with an installed capacity of 394 MW remains in operation at the site. The Tocopilla battery storage facility is already the fourth large-scale storage project the company is developing in the country, according to the website.

Battery storage is growing rapidly in Chile

The Arica pilot project, with 2 MW of output and 2 MWh of capacity, has been in operation since 2019. In March, the company commissioned the Coya storage facility, with an output of 139 MW and capacity of 638 MWh, according to Energy Storage News. The company is also developing the Tamaya (68 MW, 418 MWh) and Capricornio (48 MW, 264 MWh) projects. All of these projects are located next to solar farms, helping to stabilise their output. By contrast, the Tocopilla storage facility will operate independently of any specific generation source. The construction of standalone battery storage facilities in the country was only made possible by a legislative amendment at the end of 2022.