Deep connections and long-term partnerships are powerful tools in addressing challenges for the people and the planet, whether it is reducing poverty and creating good paying jobs, responding to a pandemic, or reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and tackling climate change. Since 1822, the United States and Colombia have shared a deep partnership based on mutual respect and a commitment to promote security, prosperity, and democratic governance in Colombia and across the Western Hemisphere.
Colombia’s Clean Energy Goals
Colombia’s energy transition was sparked by extreme weather events over decades that have set the country on course for urgent climate action.
Droughts due to El Niño, heavy dependency on hydropower (60-80 percent of electricity in Colombia depending on water levels), and floods triggered by La Niña necessitated urgent climate action. According to the World Bank, the 2010-2011 La Niña floods caused economic losses of over $7 Billion. Meanwhile, the droughts caused by El Niño caused severe stress to Colombia’s electricity system, including forced brownouts.
Colombia is making historic strides towards achieving carbon neutrality with a goal of 100 percent national energy access by 2030 to meet its revised Nationally Determined Contribution. Launched in 2016, Colombia’s Energy Plan 2050 commits to diversifying the country’s energy resources and ensuring a reliable energy supply by adding renewable energy to Colombia’s energy mix.
From Crisis to Opportunity: Looking Back to Move Forward
Achieving the country’s ambitious energy transition agenda will allow Colombia to begin phasing out fossil fuels to align with national climate goals and increase energy stability. These efforts aim to achieve a just transition. For the past five years, USAID, through its Energy Utility Partnership Program implemented by the United States Energy Association (USEA), has supported the Colombian government’s implementation of policies and regulations to incorporate non-conventional renewable energy into its grid while maintaining or improving system reliability and accommodating expected growth.
There is a tremendous opportunity for the President Petro Administration to place plans and policies to limit reliance on fossil fuels and diversify Colombia’s energy mix, building on the efforts of President Iván Duque Márquez’s Administration to meet the country’s expected demand growth."
Over the last five years, this USAID-funded program has achieved scalable impacts:
Building Resilience and Transforming Key Systems
USEA collaborated with USAID’s Scaling Up Renewable Energy (SURE) program to support Colombia in the design, preparation, and implementation of its first renewable energy auctions. These auctions in combination with other initiatives are expected to increase solar and wind production from less than one percent in 2019 to about 30 percent by 2030, reducing emissions by more than 9 million tCO2. USEA also helped Colombia revise its grid code, supported new battery storage regulation, and assisted with the Transmission Congestion Plan (including Colombia’s first grid-connected battery project) for Barranquilla.
Boosting Green Skills for an Energy Transition
USAID assembled a cross-cutting team along with USEA, NREL, and SURE to develop and deliver a Young Leaders Workforce Training Program to ready Colombia’s energy sector workforce to participate in the construction, operation, and grid integration of variable renewable energy projects. Fifty-one career professionals, including 36 women, from over 20 organizations completed the course.
“It is necessary to guarantee equal participation between men and women to take advantage of and combine knowledge, experiences, and leadership styles.” Giovanna Cano, Head of Planning and Regulation Office, Empresa de Energía de Boyacá.
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Strengthening Governance
The year 2022 has been one of transition for Colombia’s national energy policy landscape with the country enacting several non-conventional renewable energy policies to guide and incentivize development. Together with SURE and NREL and under the leadership of USAID, USEA organized a series of workshops and discussions with international experts to provide perspectives and feedback for the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) as it developed the regulatory framework for offshore wind, hydrogen, and geothermal energy.
- Temporary Permits: Building on interactions with the New York State Energy Research Development Authority offshore wind group, Colombia’s MME released an Offshore Wind Energy Roadmap, published Resolution No. 40284, to define the steps to obtain temporary permits to develop offshore wind energy projects, and announced the first round of allocations. Colombia’s roadmap estimates nearly 50 GW of offshore wind potential, worth an estimated $27 billion in investments.
- Production of Energy from Geothermal Sources: MME published two decrees regulating the production of electricity from geothermal sources: Decree 1318 relates to the development of electricity generation projects and Decree 40302 establishes the technical requirements for the geothermal registry and permits for exploration and exploitation.
- Hydrogen Guidelines: Decree 1476 adopted guidelines to promote innovation, research, production, storage, distribution, and use of hydrogen was also released.
Extreme weather pushed Colombia to diversify its energy supply and to incentivize renewable energy infrastructure nationwide. The country has now taken on an ambitious energy transition, enacting non-conventional solutions, to move itself forward into a future without fossil fuels and increased energy stability.
Ipshita Nandi Banerjee
Ipshita Nandi Banerjee is USEA’s lead storyteller, communications and gender expert for the USAID-funded Energy Utility Partnership Program (EUPP) program. She identifies key results, successes and synergies across USAID-assisted geographies under the program to draw critical attention to clean energy and climate action for a just transition in Africa, South and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean. In addition, she helps chart a roadmap to improve gender-focus in all program activities and expand USEA’s global network of women in energy.
Ipshita has over 16 years of experience in policy communications and public affairs. She has served as a communications specialist with the Department of State as a foreign service national working from the U.S. Consulate in Kolkata, India and was on special deputation at the U.S. Canter at UNFCCC COP22. She has long-standing experience in shaping the policy narrative working with, national and sub-national governments, and has worked with Government of Andhra Pradesh India, The Telegraph news daily India, CNN-IBN news channel, and Dorling Kindersley publishing.
Ipshita holds a master’s degree in Journalism and Media Management, with a certification in Public Policy, and a bachelor’s degree in English Honors.
Johanna Koolemans-Beynen
Johanna Koolemans-Beynen is program manager at USEA. She coordinates USEA activities in Colombia and Honduras, under the USAID-funded Energy Utility Partnership Program, focusing on the regulatory and legal framework surrounding the integration of renewable energy onto the grid. She helped set up a worldwide Business Innovation Partnership aimed at helping utilities incorporate business process innovation principles into their grid modernization and energy management projects. Her Bachelor’s Degree is from Georgetown University, and her Master’s is from Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. She also completed coursework for a Master’s Degree in Economics from the Colegio de Mexico.
