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Total Eclipse Wipes Out Half of Chile’s Solar Power

Total Eclipse Wipes Out Half of Chile’s Solar Power

(Bloomberg) -- The total eclipse that plunged South America into darkness for a short while on Tuesday also knocked out about half of Chile’s solar power.

Chilean solar farms, which can altogether produce about 2 gigawatts of electricity, saw their output slide by 1.2 gigawatts, according to the country’s energy ministry. The good news: The ministry had already anticipated a decline, and the country’s hydropower and natural gas resources were able to make up for the shortfall.

Chile is just the latest country to face a total eclipse since solar farms began proliferating around the world. The South American nation went from virtually no solar in 2011 to 2.1 gigawatts last year. A large swath of the U.S. saw a similar eclipse in 2017 that knocked out half of California’s solar power. The state’s grid also took it in stride.

Total Eclipse Wipes Out Half of Chile’s Solar Power

How increasingly solar-heavy grids will handle future eclipses remains to be seen. About 8% of Chile’s power now comes from solar, and the country wants 70% of its electricity to come from solar and wind by 2050.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Millan Lombrana in Santiago at lmillan4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Luzi Ann Javier at ljavier@bloomberg.net, Lynn Doan

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.