Colombia will have up to 50 new solar power plants after Norwegian investment

By Daniel Salazar Castellanos

Colombian company Erco Energía, with a presence in Colombia, Panama, the United States, and Brazil, raised US$30 million from Norwegian fund Norfund to develop solar energy in the country, the digital energy company informed Bloomberg Línea on Monday.

The resources will allow the Antioquia-based company to build between 35 and 50 solar power plants that generate up to 700 MW (megawatts).

The company has said that this investment seeks to support and accelerate the energy transition in Colombia by strengthening and diversifying the country’s energy matrix.

“With these resources, the construction of between 35 and 50 medium and large-scale solar plants will be accelerated, in addition to continuing with the installation of more solar, electric mobility, and energy storage solutions for the industrial, commercial, and residential segments,” said Juan Camilo López, CEO of the company.

Juan Esteban Hincapié, the company’s co-founder, said that “this investment will leverage a strategy that will focus on using technology and data to optimize the implementation, generation, commercialization, and management of distributed energy resources”.

Likewise, “in the medium term, it will offer people clean and reliable energy, generating economic savings to increase their productivity and future growth”.

Erco Energía has provided solutions and services to over 3,500 users and has built over 2,100 projects, including solar generation, storage, and electric mobility.

In addition, it has contributed to installing solar parks, which it operates and maintains, to commercialize energy to end users.

NEU Energy, which operates as a digital energy trader, is one of the marketing channels.

By 2027, the company expects to install 700 MW (megawatts), of which 500 MW will be part of its generation portfolio.

For Erco Energía, this negotiation “represents Norfund’s vote of confidence in the Colombian energy sector, fosters the relationship between Norway and Colombia, and reconfirms the potential and talent that the country has to develop and build clean energy generation projects”.

Last Friday, the Colombian state-owned company Ecopetrol inaugurated in the municipality of Aipe (Huila) the Brisas Solar Ecopark, a solar park with a capacity of 26 MWp and more than 49,000 panels with bifacial technology.

The infrastructure was built by AES Colombia, under an energy supply contract, for Ecopetrol’s operations in this department, informed the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

It added that its operation would also reduce CO2 emissions by more than 216,000 tons during the contract term.

“This is part of the plan to reach 2025 with about 900 megawatts of installed capacity in renewable energy. All these actions are aimed at our goal of zero net carbon emissions in 2050. For that, we are moving forward with wind energy projects, biomass, and hydrogen pilots, among others,” said the president of Ecopetrol, Felipe Bayón.

Ecopetrol also has the Castilla and San Fernando solar eco-parks built by AES Colombia, which supply energy to the group.

These are located in the department of Meta, and together they have 82 MW of installed capacity.

As of December 2022, according to the company, these two assets recorded a reduction of more than 32,000 tons of CO2 and generated savings of more than US$22 billion to Ecopetrol as of October 30 last year.

With information from Bloomberg