What will post-oil Saudi Arabia look like? Raise your hand whoever thought of Chile, la blessed land of renewable energies, more coveted than ever after the publication of the IPCC report on the environment. Yet the government of Santiago de Chile, while engaged in a very delicate revision of the constitution that still dates back to the years of Pinochet, has recently launched a fund (50 million dollars) to support development projects in the renewable energy chain and launched a sort of "green" diplomacy at the service of an ambitious goal: to become the world leader in the production of "green hydrogen", the clean gas obtained via electrolysis which is used to operate, without harmful emissions, highly polluting industries such as the iron and steel industry (see Snam's plans for Ilva in Taranto).
Supporting Chile's plans, accelerated after the blockade of gas supplies from Argentina in 2007, is geography, which makes the South American country a sort of Eden for the production of renewable energy. Along the 4.500 kilometers within which the territory winds between the Pacific Ocean and the Andean mountain ranges, virtually all forms of renewable energy on the planet can be produced: this applies to the scorching Atacama Desert, beaten by the most intense solar rays on the planet, as well as for the 4 thousand kilometers of coast or the plains of Patagonia, both beaten by strong and insistent gusts of wind. Ideal characteristics for solar and wind energy that have grown tenfold since 2015, thanks to the heavy investments of multinationals, under the pressure of the government objective to close all coal-fired plants by 2040.
In this context, the US fund EIG Global Energy has exploited the climatic characteristics (and the political climate favorable to these investments) by allocating 800 million dollars to the construction of the first thermodynamic plant of the Continent, capable of guaranteeing electricity to 250 inhabitants thanks to the heat emitted by a turbine that works thanks to water vapour.
But Chile now represents more than a laboratory in the field for the big energy companies, starting with Enel, one of the absolute protagonists of this transformation. Enel Green Power has long exploited Chile's exceptional characteristics by operating in solar and wind power, but also with investments in hydroelectric and geothermal energy with investments in 44 plants that have mobilized more than 4 workers and made it possible to conclude more than 300 renewable energy supply contracts without CO2 consumption. Now the real challenge concerns green hydrogen: in the region of Magallanes, in Patagonia, Enel Green Power together with Siemens and other multinationals (Porsche, Enap and the Chilean Andes Mining & Energy) has been developing a project to extract green hydrogen from water through an electrolysis process supported by renewable energies. The plant, which will go into production next year, is powered by a 3,4 Megawatt wind turbine from a 1,25 MW electrolyzer plant. A system that will be completed with the creation of plants to store energy .
Here lies in the heart of the Chilean ambitions to become a major player in the green hydrogen revolution. Unlike in the north, Patagonia does not lack the water necessary for the production guaranteed by wind energy. And the proximity to the sea routes of the Strait of Magellan to Europe makes credible the goal of exporting two thirds of the hydrogen produced by the Andean nation by 2035, which aspires to the title of Green Arabia.
