Sustainability and Environment
Sunny Days Ahead for Chile's Solar-powered ATC Radar
Station generates 960 kWh per day
Thales/DGAC
© Thales/DGAC

Chile’s General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) and Thales have partnered to launch the world’s first completely solar-powered air traffic control radar station. The project, developed by Thales for the DGAC for both civil and military air traffic control, began a year ago and the site became operational this month.

“For DGAC, at a strategic level, this air traffic control radar station is undoubtedly a great contribution to air safety in the north of the country where there is currently a high air traffic density that will be fully covered by this new system, given its measurement range. [This range] is the highest in the market at 100 nautical miles in the case of the primary radar and 250 nautical miles in the case of the secondary radar,” said DGAC systems director Juan Alegría.