By Maria Kalamatas | May 12, 2025
Santiago, CHILE

Across Chile’s wine-producing valleys, a quiet shift is taking place. Trucks still carry crates of wine, but fewer of them run their cooling systems on diesel. Instead, they rely on power drawn from the sun.

Over the past year, a group of local exporters has started replacing traditional refrigeration setups with solar-powered cold chain systems. These units are used not only at wineries, but also at rural collection points and near major ports.

“We needed a way to keep our wines stable without burning fuel all day,” explains Rodrigo Méndez, a logistics manager working near the Maule Valley. “Solar isn’t just greener—it’s more reliable when energy prices jump.”

The change began with a pilot project supported by ProChile and a group of private logistics firms. Now, more than 80 producers across the Maule, Casablanca, and O’Higgins regions are using solar-fed cooling stations to preserve temperature-sensitive products.

The model is straightforward. Containers or pallets connect to battery-backed solar units before transport. Once on the road, trucks use insulated holds and charge again at designated terminals closer to the port.

The impact has been immediate. Some mid-sized exporters report cutting their fuel use for cooling by more than 60%. More importantly, wine spoilage during transport has dropped.

Smaller vineyards benefit too. “We couldn’t afford diesel cold storage,” says Daniela Ríos, who manages a cooperative of organic winemakers. “Now we share access to solar-powered hubs. It changes everything for our export plans.”

Chile’s Ministry of Energy is monitoring the results. If scaled, officials estimate the system could remove thousands of tons of CO₂ from the wine export chain each year.

For an industry built on quality and precision, cooling matters. But so does the way it’s powered.

And in Chile, it seems the sun is starting to take on that role—quietly, but effectively.

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