Digital Skills: The Training Debt of the Chilean Mining Industry
May 30, 2025 Traditional technical training required in the mining industry is falling behind due to rapid technological advances and the need to adapt and respond to a variety of challenges. The Chilean Large-Scale Mining Workforce Study 2023–2032, developed by the CCM-Eleva Alliance, included a survey targeting human resources professionals to identify the main difficulties in operator and maintenance technician profiles. In both profiles, one…
Talent Shortage in Renewable Energy: An Invisible Obstacle for Chile’s Projects
May 30, 2025 The local development of solar, wind, storage, and green hydrogen energy currently faces a major hurdle: there are few specialized professionals in these areas, and the educational offering is still incipient. The rising demand for renewable energy development and the adoption of new technologies in Chile has revealed a shortage of professionals specialized in this field. This reality “is mainly affecting emerging…
With a stable charge: experts rule out sodium displacing lithium in the short and medium term.
May 16, 2025 While sodium batteries are gaining ground due to their lower cost and greater abundance, experts assert that lithium still holds key advantages in essential applications. In an exclusive interview with InfoMINERÍA, they agree that lithium’s prominence is not at risk for the time being. The announcement of sodium batteries by manufacturers such as CATL, the world’s largest battery producer, has sparked…
The impact of the ‘trade war’ on the development of the local lithium industry
April 29, 2025 As the United States considers imposing new tariffs on the import of critical minerals, experts agree that Chilean mining should continue to bet on lithium, with long-term investments and a focus on Asian markets. The so-called “trade war,” sparked by the United States’ decision to impose import restrictions and, more recently, by the possibility of setting new tariffs on critical minerals,…
UAI and CENTRA have registered a new patent for a technology that extends the operational life of defective solar panels.
As part of the World Creativity and Innovation Week, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI) announced the presentation of its 24th patent, a milestone that reinforces its commitment to the development of high-impact sustainable technologies. The patent application, whose principal inventor is Professor Felipe Larraín Benavides from the School of Engineering and Sciences, corresponds to a method and automated system for the recovery of defective solar panels….
Energy Resilience: A fundamental pillar to guarantee a reliable and continuous electricity supply.
April 28, 2025 Achieving this level of resilience requires strategic investments aimed at providing the system with greater flexibility, both in the temporal domain —the ability to adapt to fluctuations in demand or generation— and geographically, through the diversification and redundancy of its infrastructure. The latest studies on electrical resilience agree on an approach based on three fundamental pillars: risk anticipation, the ability to respond…
Seminar: Virtual Power Plants in Chile – Pathways to a Sustainable Future
April 29, 2025 This morning, the Center for Energy Transition (CENTRA) of Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez presented the policy brief “Regulatory and Policy Pathways for Implementing Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) in Chile” at a seminar held in the Entel Room of UAI’s Errázuriz campus, bringing together authorities, academics, and representatives from the electricity sector. The event was led by CENTRA researcher and Director of the Civil…
Talk: Sustainability and Sociotechnical Transitions to Reimagine the Future
April 15, 2025 The planetary polycrisis—ecological, economic, and geopolitical—requires sociotechnical transitions that integrate innovation, institutions, and cultural changes. Current policies are insufficient at both the global and local levels, and technological developments can deepen conditions of inequality. In this context, three key areas need to be developed: transformative resilience to move from incremental adaptation to structural change; multilevel governance and justice to align financing and…
Lights on the blackouts
April 10, 2025 Experts discuss the causes behind large-scale power outages, the existing gaps to prevent them, and, if they occur, how to quickly restore electricity. Multiple emotional states ran through the eight million Chileans who, on February 25, starting at 3:16 p.m., were affected by an unexpected and widespread power outage—both in terms of surface (from the regions of Arica and Parinacota to Los…
Technological development in wind farms: Bursts of innovation
April 10, 2025 In the old windmills, used for centuries to grind grain or pump water, lies the genesis of modern wind turbines. As highlighted in an article by Endesa, the transition from the former to the latter began at the end of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution and advances in electrical engineering enabled new developments. From that stage to the present, the…