Colombia Delays Dam Repairs to Avert El Niño Blackouts in Its Capital

COLOMBIA · ENERGY

Colombia has struck a deal with two foreign-owned power companies to head off El Niño blackouts in Bogotá, its capital. The fix is simple: two big hydroelectric plants will no longer be under repair at the same time.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy announced on Saturday 26 September 2026 that Enel Colombia will postpone major maintenance at El Guavio, the country’s largest hydroelectric plant. That keeps it running while AES Colombia overhauls part of its nearby Chivor plant through the dry season.

What the agreement actually does

This is not a supply contract or a new power purchase. It is a change to a repair calendar.

Enel Colombia, the local arm of the Italian utility Enel, runs El Guavio. AES Colombia, a unit of the US power company AES, runs Chivor. Both plants sit in the mountains east of Bogotá.

AES had asked to take Chivor’s second stage offline from 16 October 2026 to 10 June 2027. Enel had planned to fully drain the El Guavio reservoir between September and December 2026, then run the plant only on whatever water flowed in.

Under the deal, the El Guavio work moves out of the most critical months. The ministry called the change “voluntary, exceptional” and limited to the period of greatest risk.

The work itself is not cancelled. Reports place the change at El Guavio, and no new dates for Chivor II have been published.

The warning that forced the change

The trigger was an alert from XM, the company that runs Colombia’s national grid and its wholesale power market. XM flagged a risk to the grid’s eastern area between December 2026 and April 2027.

That area covers Bogotá, the surrounding department of Cundinamarca, and the departments of Meta and Guaviare. A department is roughly a Colombian state.

XM said that if Chivor II’s outage and El Guavio’s maintenance overlapped, the region might not meet its minimum requirements to serve demand safely. Its dispatch centre recommended a plan to curb consumption, which in practice means rationing.

The concern is partly about wires, not only water. AES has said the eastern grid cannot import enough power from plants elsewhere, because transmission lines and substations there are too weak.

Why the two plants matter so much

El Guavio is an underground plant with 1,260 megawatts of capacity in five main units. According to Infobae, it meets about 14 percent of Colombia’s daily power demand.

Chivor has 1,000 megawatts. Its second stage, units five to eight, accounts for 500 of them, and the first stage keeps running during the overhaul.

The Chivor work has been delayed twice already. It was first set for 2024 but was halted when rains destroyed the access road, and in 2025 the grid needed the plant.

El Guavio’s work is also overdue. Enel has said it must build a new, higher water intake because sediment is piling up in the reservoir and could threaten the plant.

How strong this El Niño may be

El Niño is a warming of the Pacific Ocean that usually brings drought to much of Colombia. Less rain means lower reservoirs and less hydropower.

Ideam, the national weather and climate institute, said on 10 September that the event has a better than 90 percent chance of becoming very strong from October through March. Ideam put the odds of it being the most intense in 76 years at 75 percent, La FM reported.

Officials expect dry conditions to last into mid-2027. Reservoirs were already slipping: XM put them at 77.86 percent of useful capacity on 21 September, down from 79.06 percent a week earlier.

The price of getting this wrong is high. Corficolombiana, the investment bank of the Grupo Aval conglomerate, put the cost of one hour of power rationing at 5.6 billion pesos (about US$1.7 million) in lost output.

That conversion uses 3,257 pesos per US dollar, the open.er-api.com rate on 27 September 2026. A separate study estimated that rationing on the scale of 1992 would cost US$9.6 billion.

Who bears the cost

Moving a job planned years in advance is not free. The ministry said the companies must reorganise contractors and suppliers, reshuffle equipment and spare parts, and watch the plants more closely.

It said they also take on “additional costs and risks.” No figure has been published, and nobody has said whether consumers or the state will cover any of it.

Mines and Energy Minister María Nohemí Arboleda presented the deal as part of her “Plan Energía YA,” a government plan to prepare the grid for El Niño. “It is possible to turn an alert into a concrete decision,” she said.

Natalia Gutiérrez Jaramillo, head of the generators’ association Acolgen, called it the result of “weeks of technical and constructive dialogue.” The association has also urged that thermal plants, which burn gas, coal or diesel, run flat out to save reservoir water.

The cooperation comes at an awkward moment. In August, Colombia’s competition watchdog, the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, filed charges against Enel, AES and another generator, Celsia, over alleged conduct that pushed up wholesale power prices.

What comes next

XM will keep monitoring the grid’s eastern area and the plants’ availability through the dry season. No change to Chivor II’s requested mid-October start has been announced.

The next milestones are the new El Guavio timetable, not yet disclosed, and any updated XM assessment of the December-to-April risk window.

What the deal does not mean is that El Niño blackouts are ruled out. It removes one known weak point in one region, but a very dry season could still strain reservoirs and gas supply nationwide.

It also does not make the maintenance go away. El Guavio still needs its new water intake, so the work, and its own risks, move to a later year.

For now, Bogotá has more margin than it had a month ago. How much more depends on the rain.

More: Colombia news in English, every day from The Rio Times.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Enel and AES agree to in Colombia?

Enel Colombia agreed to postpone major maintenance at its El Guavio hydroelectric plant so that it does not overlap with AES Colombia’s planned overhaul of Chivor II during the driest months of El Niño. It is a scheduling change, not a power supply contract.

Is Bogotá going to have power rationing?

None has been ordered. The grid operator XM had warned of a rationing risk in the eastern region between December 2026 and April 2027 if both plants were out at once. The deal is meant to avoid that overlap and the El Niño blackouts it could cause.

When is Chivor II offline?

AES Colombia requested an outage of Chivor’s second stage, 500 of the plant’s 1,000 megawatts, from 16 October 2026 to 10 June 2027. No new dates have been announced. The first stage keeps operating.

How long will El Niño last in Colombia?

Colombia’s weather institute, Ideam, expects the event to be very strong from late 2026 into early 2027, with dry conditions possibly lasting until mid-2027.

Sources: Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy statement, 26 September 2026, as reported by Infobae, La FM, Blu Radio and Agencia de Periodismo Investigativo; El Tiempo (XM alert, AES and Enel maintenance details); Ideam forecast of 10 September 2026 as reported by La FM; XM reservoir data; exchange rate from open.er-api.com, 27 September 2026.

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