Approximately one quarter of the electricity in Chile is supplied by coal-fired power plants which issue large quantities of greenhouse gases (GHG), among other contaminants. AES Gener (recently renamed AES Andes), Chile’s coal giant, has an installed capacity that represents 54% (2,754 MW/hr) of the national total...

Two of the regions where this company operates have been declared “saturated” because of air pollution levels exceeded legal limits. In August and September 2018, thermoelectric plants Ventanas II, Nueva Ventanas and Campiche belonging to AES Gener were involved in mass intoxication episodes that occurred in the towns of Quintero and Puchuncaví, in Central Chile.

In 2020, the Terram Foundation filed a claim before the Environmental Superintendence alleging that, during these episodes, AES Gener’s plants (now AES Andes) exceeded the limit governing maximum gross power production authorized by their environmental licenses. In response, however, the environmental authority merely acknowledged receipt of the complaint and indicated that it would be subject to analysis, without ever communicating the results of the analysis. To our knowledge, authorities have not developed any environmental inspection activities, adopted any sanctions or, otherwise, dismissed the complaint, despite the fact that the legal time limit for handling the complaint was 60 days...

Our organisations will lodge an action with the Valparaíso Appeal Court against the Superintendency of the Environment, for illegality and arbitrariness originating in the excessive administrative delay in dealing with the claim filed in 2020 relating to breach of the authorised maximum power level in the operation of the Nueva Ventanas and Campiche thermoelectric power plants, during the years 2017 to 2020. The action is also lodged against the company AES Gener and its subsidiary Empresa Eléctrica Ventanas, for continuous and repeated non-compliance with the authorised maximum power levels during the operation of the Nueva Ventanas thermoelectric power plant and, consequently, the breach of their human rights due diligence duty which seriously impacts the constitutional rights of the population living in the Quintero-Puchuncavi area, including the right to life and physical and psychological integrity, equality before the law, and the right to live in a pollution-free environment...