How can Chile make the most of its abundant solar energy resources? The country has one of the highest levels of solar radiation per square meter in the world, which has led to a growing number of projects to generate electricity from photovoltaic panels, both in large-scale installations and medium-sized systems. Distributed generation—smaller installations connected locally or for self-consumption—has not grown at the same pace, partly due to regulatory issues and the traceability of the energy generated.

This handicap has been seen as an opportunity by the Energy Transition Center at Adolfo Ibáñez University (Centra) and the Chilean Solar Energy Association (Acesol), which have joined forces to develop an applied research project aimed at integrating energy resources. 

The project aims to develop a platform and computational tools to emulate the behavior of the electrical grid and facilitate the efficient placement of resources such as batteries, solar roofs, and electric vehicle charging stations, for example.

With this, the promoters of the initiative seek to influence public policy and unlock investments in distributed generation, creating regulatory changes to promote it.

Evolution of distributed generation in Chile (self-consumption, in kWp)

Source: CNE, Flux Solar