The Valparaíso Regional Commission for Coastal Zone Use rejected unanimously, with 23 votes against, the maritime concession requested by Lile SpA. The company sought to install an offshore wind farm off Valparaíso province, between Punta Curaumilla and Quintero.
This was reported by g5noticias.cl. According to Diario Financiero, the vote took place this Friday, and the commission endorsed an unfavorable report previously issued by its Technical Committee on the wind farm's location.
The Lile Offshore Wind Farm project includes 66 wind turbines on 66 floating platforms, with mooring systems and submarine electrical cables, covering an area of 2,615,166.34 square meters. The estimated investment totals US$2,564 million. Lile SpA is linked to Acciona Energía and Blue Lines Energía, and no wind farms of this type are yet under construction in Chile.
Regional Governor Rodrigo Mundaca, who chairs the commission, explained that defense considerations carried the most weight. "The Chilean Navy's main combat force is located in the 1st Naval Zone, and particularly in Valparaíso," he said. He added that the Technical Committee and Rear Admiral Raúl Silva had raised concerns.
Mundaca also maintained that the project did not guarantee the free navigation of vessels entering and leaving the port. On environmental matters, he mentioned the protection of marine biodiversity and recalled that Chile and Valparaíso are seeking to host the technical secretariat of BBNJ, the international treaty on biodiversity on the high seas. The governor acknowledged the initiative's energy contribution but considered it insufficient to justify that location.
Regional councilors Paula Rosso, Catalina Thauby, Omar Valdivia and Osvaldo Urrutia attended the session. Urrutia, chair of the Regional Council's (CORE) Committee on Spatial Planning, Maritime Interests and Fisheries, described the result as "overwhelming." He warned that it would affect traffic at the country's second most important port, fishing coves and the landscape of an area oriented toward tourism.
"Chile has 4,300 kilometers of coastline; choosing a location directly off Valparaíso does not seem the most appropriate to me," said Urrutia, who said he supported renewable energy but argued that the company should look for other areas of the country.
The regional ruling does not definitively reject the concession. The final decision rests with the Undersecretariat for the Armed Forces, within the Ministry of Defense. Mundaca said the central government could decide differently, but that in five years it had never reversed an opinion issued by this commission. "Let us hope that does not happen on this occasion either," he said.
