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The plant
Cerro Pabellón geothermal power plant
The plant is located in the municipality of Ollagüe, in the high plateau of the Atacama desert (Antofagasta region), in northern Chile. It’s the only operational geothermal plant in South America and the highest of its kind in the world, at 4,500 meters above sea level.
It harnesses fluid from a medium-high enthalpy reservoir using binary technology, extracting thermal energy and feeding it into a secondary turbine circuit, then re-injecting 100% of the fluid back into the reservoir at a lower temperature. The heat is constantly regenerated in the reservoir.
Tecnology
Geothermal
Status
Operational
Operating capacity
83 MW
Energy production
500 GW per year
CO2 emissions avoided
390,000 metric tons per year
Energy needs
Cerro Pabellón generates enough energy to cover the energy needs of 1.7 million Chilean homes annually
Timeline
Milestones
Impact on local communities
Ollagüe is a very small rural municipality located in the high plateau of the Antofagasta region – near the border with Bolivia – whose population is mostly indigenous. Thanks to the Cerro Pabellón plant, the inhabitants finally have electricity 24 hours a day. In addition to the geothermal power plant, we’ve also built a hybrid plant: the first one in the world that combines solar, wind and cogeneration (combined heat and power, CHP)[3] energy with electricity storage in molten-salt batteries, providing power to homes at high altitudes and in extreme climatic conditions, with temperatures ranging from -20°C to +20°C.