| Work Detail |
With a capacity of 603 kWp, it is located at 4,700 meters above sea level in the Cochacucho Mining Unit, Puno Department. It was developed and built by the Peruvian company M4S for the Horizonte Mining Consortium. Its construction faced logistical and environmental challenges, such as the cold and lack of oxygen. Peruvian company M4S has announced the construction of what is considered the highest photovoltaic plant in Peru, located at 4,700 meters above sea level in the Cochacucho Mining Unit, Puno department, with a capacity of 603 kWp. It surpasses the largest high-altitude solar installation in Latin America to date, the Caucharí park in the Argentine province of Jujuy, located at 4,020 meters above sea level . Its development has been carried out by the Peruvian company M4S for the Horizonte Mining Consortium. The plant, which consists of 900 Trina Solar brand 700 Wp PERC bifacial panels and five Huawei SUN2000-100KTL-M2 three-phase 100 kW inverters, will reduce the use of more than 265 thousand liters of diesel per year, an estimated saving of more than 1.25 million soles. 250 million soles (around 340 thousand dollars) annually. Environmental and logistical challenges The unique location of the project required facing particular challenges. According to what M4S Site Manager for the project, Gonzalo Sánchez, told pv magazine , the project has been completed and is now operational, meeting the established deadlines. “The lowest ambient temperature in the area was -9°C. Even more investment was made in personal protective equipment (PPE) (jacket, gloves, socks, and thicker pants) than usual, but the facility still had to be shut down constantly because there were times when staff couldnt tolerate the extreme cold and snow,” Sánchez said. He also described the added challenge of altitude. During the first two weeks of work, performance was very low because the team wasnt acclimatized to working at that altitude, he explained. They had to receive oxygen to recover from their work. Later, they felt more acclimatized and made better progress, even so, they had to work a lot of overtime to compensate for the work stoppages. “Logistically, the final access to the construction site was very uneven and unpaved, making it difficult to reach the forklift to move the pallets of panels. The transport had to be done manually from a certain point to the construction site. Two workers carried the more than 800 modules installed one by one,” he concluded. |
