Colombian energy group Promigas has inaugurated the Aurora solar-plus-storage plant in Pozo Almonte, in Chile's northern Tarapacá region. Chilean business daily Diario Financiero reports an investment of US$224 million for a plant with 221 MWdc of solar capacity, 355,540 panels on 467 hectares and a battery system able to deliver its full 187 MW for about five hours. The project was originally developed by Zelestra, whose Latin American platform Promigas bought in May.
What was built
According to Diario Financiero, construction took ten months and employed up to 900 workers at its peak. The storage system consists of 204 lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery containers. The company puts storage capacity at 1,023 MWh and expected output at 649 GWh a year, enough for about 260,000 Chilean homes.
pv magazine Latinoamérica, drawing on grid operator documents, gives somewhat lower figures for the plant, now officially named Estela Solar: 220 MWdc of PV, a 187 MW / 935 MWh battery built with Sungrow PowerTitan 2.0 units, and expected generation of 600 GWh a year. In testing, the PV plant reached a peak net output of 201.08 MW, and a June discharge test delivered 919.04 MWh over five hours. The plant shares a single 187 MW grid connection between solar and storage.
Grid approval and buyers
Chile's grid coordinator CEN authorised the plant to provide primary frequency control from 8 October, covering both solar generation and battery charging and discharging. Further technical reports are open for comment until 28 October and 4 November, and pv magazine notes that the documents do not yet explicitly confirm full commercial operation. Copec group's Abastible buys power under a long-term contract signed in March 2025 to supply solar electricity during night hours. La Tercera also names Engie as a client. The project was financed in June 2025 with a US$282 million green loan from Natixis CIB and BNP Paribas.
A bigger hub in the Atacama
Aurora is the first of three solar-plus-storage projects in what Promigas calls the Tarapacá energy hub, with a combined investment of more than US$1,060 million. Promigas has launched a new brand, Krelo, for its renewable business in Chile, Colombia and Peru, and La Tercera reports a target of 3,500 MW by 2030, with 40 to 50% of it in Chile. "There is no development in the region like Chile's. It is a very positive signal," Promigas president Juan Manuel Rojas told La Tercera (remarks translated from Spanish). Energy undersecretary Hugo Briones said the project "reminds us that the energy transition is a comprehensive effort", stressing the need to modernise the grid.
What it means
Northern Chile has some of the best solar resource in the world, but daytime curtailment and low midday prices have pushed developers towards storage. Aurora shows the model now taking hold across the region: a plant sized so that roughly five hours of battery capacity moves solar output into the evening and night, sold under contracts that pay for night-time supply. For developers and investors elsewhere in Latin America, it is a working reference for how solar-plus-storage can be financed and contracted at utility scale.
Sources: Diario Financiero, pv magazine Latinoamérica, La Tercera.
