The advanced single axis PV trackers have been used in the construction of some of South America’s largest utility-scale solar energy projects in Chile (142 MW) and Honduras (81 MW).
SunEdison announced in December 2014 that it had been awarded the contract by Chile’s National Energy Commission to supply the country with 570 gigawatt hours of clean energy per year. The energy generated by the plants will be purchased by local energy companies under 15 year power purchase agreements. In Honduras the company closed a $146 million non-recourse debt financing arrangement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Central Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) enabling the construction of three solar power plants in the country with a total capacity of 81 MW.
The three Honduras solar plants – Pacifico (23.3 MW), Choluteca I (23.3MW) and Choluteca II (35.1 MW) – will provide energy to the country’s national grid under 20-year power purchase agreements with ENEE, the state-owned electricity generation, transmission and distribution company. They are expected to be interconnected during the second half of 2015 and will be operated and managed by SunEdison under a long-term operation and maintenance agreement and management services agreement.
“Our experience installing NEXTracker in our projects in Chile and Honduras has been excellent” said Sasan Aminpour, Vice President of Global Operations for SunEdison. “SunEdison’s engineering teams have conducted extensive assessments of NEXTracker’s technology, and have concluded that it is a reliable and cost effective platform for our ground-mounted projects.”
Dan Shugar, CEO of NEXTracker, added that the tracker’s unimpeded row design helps to provide valuable cost savings for panel cleaning in the dusty Chilean desert while also minimising site grading requirements.
NEXTracker Inc specialises in horizontal tracking with an emphasis on achieving lower costs, better performance and more flexibility for solar plants. The company has delivered trackers for dozens of projects across 3 continents. It is headquartered in California with regional offices in Asia, Europe and South America.
For additional information:
