Economics
Copper Mine Glut Puts Brakes on Latin America's Clean-Power Boom
- As Chile mines contract, demand slows for surplus electricity
- Too many solar, wind plants and no way to send power elsewhere
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The global copper slump is helping to tap the brakes on Latin America’s fastest-growing renewable-energy market.
Chile, the world’s biggest copper producer, has been adding solar panels and wind turbines for two years to supply power-thirsty smelters that process ore from remote mines in the sun-baked northern desert. But with metal prices half what they were five years ago, output fell and energy demand slowed. That’s compounding an electricity glut in a self-contained power grid thousands of miles from population centers in the stick-shaped South American country.