Santiago, Chile: Total and SunPower Corp. announced May 23 that SunPower has signed a power purchase agreement for the supply of 300 gigawatt hours per year of solar energy to Metro of Santiago. With this agreement, Metro of Santiago will become the first public transportation system in the world to run mostly on solar energy. Metro of Santiago currently serves 2.2 million passengers per day.
The power will be generated from the El Pelícano Solar Project, a 100-megawatt (AC) project near the municipalities of La Higuera (Coquimbo Region) and Vallenar (Atacama Region). Construction of the solar power plant will begin this year, with expected operation by the end of 2017.