ContourGlobal has started commercial operations at the Victor Jara solar-plus-storage project in Chile. The project combines a 231MW solar power plant with a 200MW/1.3GWh battery energy storage system (BESS), capable of supplying electricity for up to 6.5 hours.
Located in the Tarapacá region, it is currently one of the longest-duration utility-scale battery storage projects in the world and the largest operating project of its kind in Latin America.
The Victor Jara project has a 15-year night-only power purchase agreement (PPA) with utility Copec EMOAC, which has been active in procuring power from other co-located BESS projects. The solar PV production is shifted into the late afternoon nighttime using the BESS.
The project was acquired from developer and IPP Grenergy, along with the Quillagua 1 and Quillagua 2 in Antofogasta, which total 221MW of solar and 1.2GWh of BESS.
At the time of acquisition these were the first three phases of Grenergy’s Oasis de Atacama collection of projects, which has seven phases totalling 4GW of solar PV and 11GWh of storage, being developed and sold to different companies. The fourth phase (272MW of solar, 1.1GWh BESS) was sold to investor CVC late last year.
Chile has become a hotbed of large-scale BESS activity as companies deploy BESS to shift solar PV production into night time hours, mitigating curtailment and negative pricing risk.
BESS projects have been completed by IPPs and power firms Zelestra, Innergex and Engie totalling around 1.5GWh of BESS capacity in the past few months alone. In April, investor Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners started building one of that size.
The Oasis de Atacama projects have been supplied (so far) by both CATL and BYD, while Grenergy recently enlisted BYD for its second portfolio of projects, Oasis Central.
Maria Cuadrado, ContourGlobal’s global BESS strategy and development manager, also spoke at the Energy Storage Summit 2026 in London, where she discussed battery storage project quality, product selection, and performance challenges.
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