• Press Release AES Andes announces cancellation of INNA, the industrial complex planned near Paranal 2 February 2026 AES Andes announced that it will step back from the megaproject INNA, planned to be located near the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Paranal Observatory. • ESO welcomes this announcement and expects that the project will be withdrawn from Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) soon, which would formally confirm INNA is not going ahead. • “When the cancellation is confirmed, we’ll be relieved that the INNA industrial complex will not be built near Paranal,” said ESO Director General Xavier Barcons. • “Due to its planned location, the project would pose a major threat to the darkest and clearest skies on Earth and to the performance of the most advanced astronomical facilities anywhere in the world.” AES Andes, a subsidiary of the US company AES Corporation, announced on Friday 23 January that they had decided to discontinue INNA, a green hydrogen and green ammonia project, to focus on their renewable energy portfolio instead. • A detailed technical analysis by ESO last year revealed that INNA would cause severe, irreversible damage to the dark skies of Paranal and to the capacity of its facilities to operate as designed. • The most significant impacts, affecting facilities such as the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the VLT Interferometer (VLTI), the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), and CTAO-South, would be caused by light pollution, micro-vibrations, dust, and

Article Summaries:

  • AES Andes has cancelled its planned INNA green‑hydrogen and green‑ammonia complex near Chile’s Paranal Observatory. The decision, announced on 23 January, was made to refocus the company’s renewable‑energy portfolio. ESO welcomed the move, saying the project would have posed a major threat to the observatory’s dark skies and the operation of its flagship telescopes (VLT, VLTI, ELT, CTAO‑South) through light pollution, vibrations, dust and turbulence. ESO expects the project to be formally withdrawn from Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service soon. The cancellation underscores the need for clear protection measures around world‑class astronomical sites.

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