The government of Colombia is accelerating the design of important reforms to attract foreign direct investment in clean energy generation so that the country can develop its solar and wind resources, President Ivan Duque Marquez said March 1 on the opening day of CERAWeek by IHS Markit.
The goal of the government is to increase the contribution of so called non-conventional renewable resources to the total generation matrix of the country from 0.2% currently to over 14% in the next few years, Duque Marquez said.By the end of 2021, Colombia will have over 1 GW of total installed capacity generation using solar or wind technologies and will reach 2.5 GW by the end of 2022. Over the next five years, another 4.8 GW will be installed through a series of energy auctions, he said.
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According to the Colombian Association of power generators (Acolgen), 68.3% of Colombia's total installed capacity for power generation, or 11.8 GW, is hydroelectric and the remaining 30.7% is produced through conventional thermal sources. Solar and wind currently account for only 0.2% of total capacity.
"This can be the largest expansion of an energy matrix base on non-conventional renewables," he said.
In the process, the president wants to increase the attractiveness of the country to foreign direct investment, just like other countries such as Argentina are trying to do.
"We want Colombia to be considered as the place for international investment in Latin America," he said.
That way, Colombia plans to reduce its CO2 emissions by 51% by 2030, the president said, adding that Colombia is trying to generate confidence among the international business community through legal certainty for investments.
"In terms of the quality of legislation to be business friendly, I think Colombia is perceived as one of the leaders in Latin America," Duque Marquez said.
Colombia has recently launched the first auction for energy storage in Latin America, and has passed a bill that incentivizes green transportation which already increased electric car purchases by over 70% in 2020, he said.
