Ana Lía Rojas, executive director of Acera, characterized the curtailment decline as positive but emphasized that significant renewable energy still goes unused. The organization advocates a comprehensive approach combining transmission expansion, storage growth, operational flexibility and new demand sources to address the mismatch between renewable capacity and grid infrastructure. Non-conventional renewable energy already accounts for 42.5% of cumulative 2026 generation and exceeds half of installed capacity on the national grid.
The curtailment trajectory shifted notably from March onward, with June and July recording lower losses than 2024. Iván Astete, research senior analyst at Aurora Energy Research, attributed the improvement primarily to battery deployment but noted that sustained reductions require both continued storage expansion and completion of transmission projects, particularly the construction-phase HVDC Kimal-Lo Aguirre link designed to strengthen north-south dispatch of solar and wind output.
A critical regulatory issue centers on opportunity cost calculation for batteries, which currently receive valuation based on charging cost rather than the grid value they provide through time-shifting energy. As storage plays a larger role in nighttime dispatch merit order, developers and operators are monitoring pending implementation details on how opportunity cost will be determined and applied. In August, storage contributed 562GWh to the national grid, equivalent to 7.2% of total production.
The pipeline indicates accelerating deployment, with 18.4GW holding environmental licenses and 10.3GW in environmental review. Annual new storage capacity is forecast to average 2.90GW from 2026 through 2028, substantially exceeding the 1.82GW average annual generation capacity additions recorded from 2016 to 2025. Enel Chile’s Valle del Sol BESS project exemplifies the hybrid model, integrating 186MW of storage with an existing 163MW photovoltaic plant in María Elena to convert the facility into a combined solar-battery installation.
This article was curated and published as part of our South American energy market coverage.
