Colombia demands power distributors acquire clean energy; imposes renewable quota

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL –  The Colombian government has introduced the obligation for power distributors to acquire clean energy.

Resolution 40715, which has now been approved by Colombia’s Ministry of Energy and Mines, mandates that all power companies operating in the wholesale energy market ensure at least 10% of the power they distribute has come from renewables.

The annual obligation will come into force from January 1st, 2022.

The resolution, the draft version of which was put out for public consultation in 2019, stipulates power companies must procure the clean energy under long-term contracts lasting at least a decade and registered with the Administrator of the Commercial Exchange System.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, Colombia had 90 MW of installed solar power at the end of 2019. The country, however, is expected to register strong growth in new renewable energy capacity between 2020 and 2022, as a result of a first auction held in October 2019, in which 2.2 GW of wind and solar combined was allocated, and the distributed generation segment, for which new rules were introduced in March 2018.

According to Colombia‘s Mining and Energy Planning Unit (UPME), there are currently 385 projects totaling 15 GW at different stages of development, including 4 biomass, 17 wind, 93 hydro, 271 photovoltaic (solar) and 7 thermal.

The 271 photovoltaic projects currently being planned, developed or built in the country have a combined capacity of 8,855 MW. Of those, 54 were initiated in 2018, 159 last year and 58 so far in 2020.