Cerro Dominador, the project commissioned by ACCIONA industrial and ABENGOA as main EPEcistas and in which MMYPEM has participated demonstrating a high commitment, complying with the stablished deadlines during the salt fusion phase has been successfully completed.
Cerro Dominador is the first thermosolar plant in Latin America located in María Elena, near Calama, in the Antofagasta Region (Chile), an area with one of the highest levels of solar radiation in the world.
“Without a doubt, it is a very powerful teamwork, because we also have the advantage of having the sun and the salts in the same place,” says Francisco Vizcaíno, Project Director.
The thermosolar plant, has a capacity of 110 MW and 17.5 hours of thermal storage and has completed some of its main milestones, such as the merge of 46,000 tons of salts from the Atacama desert . The hot salt tanks will be kept at a temperature of 560ºC and the cold salt tanks at 290ºC.
The works carried out by MMYPEM have been the collection of salts and their subsequent fusion process. To do this, MMYPEM has required more than 100 workers, including local and expatriate personnel, and the salt melting process has been carried out in less than 60 days, the time that was initially scheduled for its completion.
This plant, already operational, will avoid the emission into the atmosphere of more than 870,000 tons of CO2 per year. The molten salt technology used in the plant has the capacity of storing electricity for up to almost 18 hours, allowing continuous storage and transmission, which generates electricity 24 hours a day.
These accomplishments can make Chile the key to the country’s energy transition.
