Endesa Chile has approved investment of US$273M to build the 150MW project in the Maule region by the end of 2012.

The power utility said it pans to award four contracts to build the project

Los Condores, which is expected to generate approximately 529GWh annually (previous figure was given as 560GWh/year), was last month mentioned by the company as having a related budget of US$180M.

The plant is to be built under four contracts – three civil, one equipment. Construction is scheduled to start by the end of the third quarter this year. The project is expected to take 50 months to complete.

The plant will be built near the town of San Clemente in the Maule region. Water to the plant will be conveyed through approximately 16km of tunnels and pipeline from the Laguna del Maule, a lake-filled caldera in the Talca province that feeds the Maule river.

Electricity from the plant will be transmitted by a 90km long, 220kV line to the Anco substation to supply the grid.