Titanium Park is the first major project in Santiago de Chile to use geothermal energy. In the commune of Vitacura, the holding company, Transoceánica, already uses it for its corporate headquarters in Vitacura.
While Titanium Park uses groundwater from the Mapocho, captured about 100 metres below ground and with a constant temperature of 15ºC, the corporate headquarters of Transoceánica employs uses the water from bore holes only 60 metres underground.
As cited by the newspaper La Tercera, "there are also buildings in Santiago's industrial parks that are heated only by geothermal energy: Fasa’s distribution centre, a Derco manufacturing plant, and the building of the importer, Alsacia".
The newspaper also explains that a similar system was due to be installed at the La Moneda presidential palace; a project that was suspended after the earthquake that struck part of Chile last January.
Great potential for high-temp geothermal
While Chile begins to realise the potential of low enthalpy (or low temperature) geothermal energy for heating and cooling buildings, the high temperature end of the market still has a way to go to fully exploit Chile’s huge geothermal resources.
Last summer, the Chilean government announced that it was getting serious about geothermal, saying it would contribute over $200 million for geothermal investments over the next two years. The country’s Minister of Energy, Ricardo Raineri, announced that his government would grant over 170 concessions to geothermal developers through 2012, leading to the influx of millions of dollars in investment from international companies.
However, last month Chile’s state oil and gas group, ENAP, abandoned efforts to develop geothermal energy, selling off its stakes in the sector to Australia’s Origin Energy Limited.
Origin acquired a 40% interest in Energía Andina SA (EASA), Chile’s leading geothermal exploration company, from ENAP following a competitive bidding process.
Founded in 2008, EASA has established a portfolio of eight geothermal exploration projects in the northern and central regions of Chile, covering a total of 553,400 hectares.
“Chile is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has considerable prospective geothermal hot spots, estimated to make up 60% of the total Latin American geothermal resources. Preliminary assessment of the geothermal potential of Chile indicates a possible 16,000 MW of resource available,” explains Karen Moses, Origin’s Executive Director for Finance and Strategy. “This investment in EASA supports our pursuit of geothermal opportunities in growing markets offshore and provides us with an established presence in the Chilean market.
“It is our view that geothermal can provide large scale renewable base load energy and Chile has significant potential from a resource and growing local demand perspective,” she adds.
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