German state-owned lender KfW Ipex-Bank is lending US$106mn in debt capital financing for the first phase of a renewable energy mega-project in Chile.

The enormous project, known as Andes Renovables (renewables Andes), is a three-phase wind and solar generation project comprised of seven wind and three solar photovoltaic (PV) generation assets. The first phase, which will run under the name Cóndor – the national bird of the South American country – will supply approximately 571MW of green energy from three wind farms and one PV project to around 680,000 Chilean households.

The project sponsor is Irish wind and solar developer Mainstream Renewable Power. The three wind farms will be constructed by Spanish companies Sacyr Industrial and Elecnor, and the wind turbines are to be supplied by European companies Vestas, Nordex Acciona and Siemens Gamesa. India-based company Sterling & Wilson Solar is in charge of building the PV park, with the grid connection works being carried out by Transelec, CGE, HMV and Siemens. All four main transformers for the projects will be supplied by ABB. The construction of the Cóndor project phase has already started and the facilities will successively begin operation as of the end of next year.

The overall investment volume of the project’s first phase comes to US$580mn, which will be financed through a consortium which includes a further six banks: CaixaBank, DNB, Natixis, SMBC, MUFG and Société Générale.

This latest deal for KfW comes after it agreed in February to lend US$91mn for the construction and operation of the 123MW Granja PV park in Chile’s Atacama desert, being built by Spanish developer Solarpack Corporación Tecnológica. This in turn came in the wake of it lending a similar amount to Transelec Concesiones, Chile’s largest power grid operator, to finance four power grid projects. Speaking to GTR at the time, Ulrich Schoppmeyer, director of power, renewables and water at KfW, said that the lender sees “high growth potential” in the Chilean power sector.