Weekly Market Analytics Chile Vol 12 Num 25

VOL 12 | NUM 25 | 11 January 2026

Power Markets Weekly

CHILE | 29 December - 4 January 2025

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Coal decommissioning continues: 700 MW retired with 377 MW of them transitioning to gas

Glossary

Global SEN operation

The average price in Polpaico reached USD 34.9/MWh, 16% higher than last week, and 4% higher than the same week, last year.

Marginal cost evolution in Polpaico during past years

On 31 December, two coal‑fired units from the Central Térmica Mejillones (CTM) plant, CTM1 (162 MW) and CTM2 (172 MW), were decommissioned from the system. In addition, the Infraestructura Eléctrica Mejillones (IEM, 377 MW) plant, also coal‑fired, began its conversion to natural gas.

Given the New Year holiday, a lower total demand was seen on the system (-0.5%). Peak demand of the week occurred at 1 PM on Monday, with 13.1 GW. At the time wind and solar represented 74.9% of the generation mix.

Thermal sources had a mix behaviour, with coal and oil shares decreasing by 0.4 pp and 0.1 pp, respectively, while the share of gas increased by 1.9 pp. Regarding hydro sources, an increase was seen both in run-of-river (+0.6 pp) and dam (+0.5 pp), notably, the variable cost of dam decreased, from USD 102/MWh to USD 87/MWh. On the other hand, renewables registered a mixed behavior: solar participation increased by 0.6 pp while wind suffered the main decrease of the week of 2.7 pp.

BESS injections had their major participation on Wednesday at 10 PM, representing 15.5% of the supply.

Generation Mix

Variation

Power range by energy sources (average prices)

Learn more about this chart

Generation evolution

Geothermal

Cogeneration

Biomass

Coal

Gas

Oil

BESS

Dam

Run-of-river

Wind

PV Solar

CSP

Lower demand resulted in a more coupled system overall, except for Puerto Montt, which decoupled every day due to congestion on the 220 kV Lastarria–Ciruelos line during solar hours and some nighttime periods, excluding Thursday and Friday. Given the decoupling, Puerto Montt had to operate oil power plants to supply its demand, marking the peak price of the week of USD 224.3/MWh at 5 PM of Tuesday.

Note that marginal costs of Saturday should be considered preliminary since non‑zero prices were reported throughout the day, but CEN records indicate that renewable energy sources set prices during several hours and curtailment was reported. Besides, the nighttime peak does not fully align with the plants setting prices at that time.

In terms of zero-hour price, from Crucero to Charrúa they registered 68 hours (preliminary), while Puerto Montt had only 29.

Marginal cost evolution

Crucero
USD 34.1/MWh

D. de Almagro
USD 34.4/MWh

Pan de Azúcar
USD 34.9/MWh

Polpaico
USD 34.9/MWh

Charrúa
USD 33.9/MWh

Puerto Montt
USD 65.3/MWh

Solar and Wind production & BESS dispatch

Solar generation remained stable this week, with only a 746 MWh decrease (-0.1%). The highest plant factor was in Charrúa area with 37.0%, while the lowest was in Pan de Azúcar with 22.1%, the system-wide solar plant factor reached 27.0%.

Wind generation in the system suffered a major decrease this week, of 47.5 GWh (-17.6%). A quite low power plant factor was seen through the week in the Polpaico area, with an average of only 5.6%, and even though the Charrúa region had the greatest average plant factor of 38.9%, during the weekend its plant factor was zero for many hours. The system-wide plant factor was of 20.4%.

BESS injections increased by 1.0 GWh (+1.7%), with the Crucero area being the main increase of 853 MWh, while Polpaico area reduced its injections by 49 MWh. In total, 62.0 GWh were injected.

This week, the curtailment rates were 18.9% for wind and 22.8% for solar, reaching an average curtailment rate of 21.1% (similar to last week, when it reached 22.3%).