Third International Investment Meeting has a successful outcome:Private Industries praise CORFO for supporting renewable energiesPublished: November 12, 2008The International Council of Large Electrical Networks, CIGRE stressed the importance of CORFO's work and gave them recognition for their excellent Public Initiative, for their Program to Promote and Attract Investments for Non-Conventional Renewable Energy (ERNC).
In this year's Investment Meeting more than 800 bilateral business meetings took place between Chilean project developers and financial experts from 15 different countries. Projects that will be in operation shortly and, new support tools, were also announced.
As a result of working for four years to promote the development of Non-Conventional Renewable Energy (NCRE) projects throughout the country, CORFO -the Chilean Economic Development Agency- has been praised by CIGRE, the International Council of Large Electrical Networks, and given recognition for the best Public Initiative, for creating a specific program to Promote and Attract Investments in NCRE and CDM (Clean Development Mechanisms).
Apart from important international investment meetings, the CORFO program also includes financial incentives for clean energy initiatives. The Third Investment Meeting for Non-Conventional Renewable Energy (NCRE) recently took place within the context of the World Conference for Climate Change and Energy, which was also held in Chile, from October 28th to October 31st, and attended by roughly 1,300 people.
The massive attendance to this third version of the CORFO meeting - including public authorities as well as national and foreign investors, even on a holiday (the 31st) - is a clear sign that the government is committed to foster energy diversification, and how this issue is becoming more and more relevant at a national level.
The highlights of the event included: over 800 bilateral business meetings between Chilean project developers and financial experts from 15 different countries; the start of 14 NCRE private short-term initiatives with government support; an announcement of additional resources being applied to speed up the realization of these projects by means of focalized tools to impel each stage of development- from the pre-investment stage up to the start up stage.
"The recognition given to our work by private industries confirms the relevance of this effort." said Carlos Alvarez, the Executive Vice-president (CEO) of this entity. "CORFO began to work on this subject four years ago; we would start up projects, but, back then, we could not find the space to turn into investments. Today, instead, our portfolio has 120 projects in progress, five of which have already been set in motion, and nine of which are under construction".
He added that "just as in other moments throughout its history, the role of CORFO is to be a catalyst for an emerging industry that, without a doubt, will be crucial for Chile's future economic development thanks to its unquestionable availability of natural resources for generating renewable energy, such as water and biomass, winds, geothermics and solar radiation."
It is worthy to point out that the project portfolio raised by CORFO include wind, hydraulic, geothermic and biomass initiatives for different regions of the country, especially in Valparaiso, Bio Bio, Los Rios, Los Lagos, Maule and Coquimbo. These projects are all in different phases, but once the final phases are reached, they will represent over 1.000 MW of installed potency, with an investment of about US$ 2,000 million.
One of the announcements made jointly by the CORFO Executive Vice-president and Marcelo Tokman, the Minister of Energy, is the formation of an NCRE Center. Essentially, this is a CORFO committee to ensure efficiency in identifying and transferring technological enterprises. They expect it will start working some time in 2009.
Also, during November, training sessions and seminars have been scheduled on the subject of ERNC's new support tools and current national market conditions for developing this type of project and for identifying MDL projects. The first workshop took place last Friday; the following sessions are scheduled for November 6th in Concepcion, November 21st in Santiago, and November 27th in Puerto Montt.
Participating companies and authoritiesThe World Conference on Climate Change was composed of 4 parallel events (The Latin-American Carbon Forum, an CDM Executive Committee meeting, an CDM Assigned Officials forum, and the Third NCRE and CDM Investments Meeting). These events brought together important personalities for four full days, including Ana Lya Uriarte, Environmental Minister; Alicia Frohman, director of ProChile; Christiana Figueres, Vice-president of the UN Latin-American Panel on Climate Change; and John Drexhage, the International Institute for Sustainable Development representative, Andres Hasselager, Minister of Climate and Energy of Denmark; Antonio Sarmento, international expert in Tidal Energy/Power of the Lisbon Technical University, and others.
These authorities referred to the challenge of developing climate competition in Chile, and to our government's commitment to finding solutions to global warming, while assuring that a plan of action, to be announced this year, is in place for climate change.
Furthermore, Chile is positioned as one of the main offerers of carbon offsets in the world, not only because of its potential to develop clean projects, but also because of its stability and trustworthiness, in addition to being well positioned in Latin-American in terms of its compliance with the objectives established by the Kyoto Protocol until 2012.
Of the countries that attended, Spain brought the largest number of participants with 43 investors, followed by Brazil with 27, Argentina with 21, U.S.A. with 19 and Germany with 13.
Iberdrola was among the most important companies present. Through its subsidiary in Chile, Iberoamericana de Energía (Ibener), they are developing the Ruca Cura (4,7 MW) power plant in the Bio Bio region. Another was Econergy of the United States, presently financing the Laja power plant in the Bio Bio region, and which has also been supported by CORFO. Also present were: SN Power from Norway; IFC; and ABO Wind AG - one of the principal promoters of Aeolian energy in Germany.
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