Enel Chile Breaks Ground on Its Third 100 MW BESS at Finis Terrae

Enel Chile announced on Monday, August 17 the start of construction of the Finis Terrae BESS, a 100 MW battery energy storage system to be integrated with the 160 MW Finis Terrae solar park in Antofagasta. The project converts the site into a hybrid solar-battery plant feeding energy into Chile's National Electric System (SEN).

The investment, which Enel reports at approximately US$95 million in its 2025 annual Form 20-F report, marks the company's third storage project in the mining region in less than a year, according to pv magazine Latam. The system will use grid-forming technology, whereby inverters participate in setting the voltage and frequency references for the SEN rather than tracking them. Chile's Coordinador Eléctrico Nacional recommended in 2024 that new BESS units connected to the transmission network incorporate this capability, in response to the growing share of power electronics-connected resources. The pivot to hybrid solar-storage reflects the risk of generation curtailment due to grid saturation during peak-radiation hours, a pattern that also constrains photovoltaic expansion in Mexico and other regional markets.

Finis Terrae BESS joins two projects that Enel Green Power Chile is already building in Antofagasta: BESS Las Salinas, at approximately 205 MW with up to four hours of discharge, and Azabache BESS, at 94 MW and 372 MWh, whose construction began in November 2025 and April 2026, respectively. Across all three, the company has accumulated more than 730 MW of storage between operating and under-construction capacity, Diario Financiero reported. The system will store approximately 168 GWh annually, equivalent to roughly 12% of the potential energy of the reservoir at the Pangue hydroelectric plant. As of the end of June, Chile had 2,291 MW of batteries in operation, with another 4.7 GW under construction, according to figures cited by pv magazine Latam.

The key milestone to watch is the commercial operation of Finis Terrae BESS and how the Coordinador Eléctrico Nacional applies grid-forming requirements to new transmission-connected systems. Chile's accelerating deployment of solar-storage hybrids also offers a reference point for the auction design that Mexico and other regional markets currently have under discussion.

This article was drafted with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.