Enel and ENAP inaugurated today Cerro Pabellón, the first geothermal power plant in South America and the world’s first large-scale facility of this kind to be built at 4,500 meters above sea level.
The inauguration ceremony, followed the start of operations at the second of the plant’s two 24 MW-units.
Cerro Pabellón is located in the Atacama Desert, in the Ollagüe district, Antofagasta region, and is composed of two units with a gross installed capacity of 24 MW each for a total capacity of 48 MW. Once fully operational, it will be able to produce around 340 GWh per year, equivalent to the consumption needs of more than 165,000 Chilean households, while avoiding the annual emission of more than 166,000 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Cerro Pabellón is a high-enthalpy binary cycle plant and incorporates the most advanced geothermal technologies to guarantee an optimum performance against the extreme conditions of its location, characterised by high temperature variation and high altitude. In addition, the geothermal fluid extracted from the production wells, once completed the generation cycle into the plant, is re-injected into the reservoir ensuring the long-term availability and sustainability of the geothermal resource. One of the particular characteristics of geothermal energy is its ability to produce energy continuously, 24 hours a day.
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