2 days ago
3
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia’s ambitious plans for upwind vigor development, particularly successful the resource-rich La Guajira region, are facing superior setbacks arsenic large companies propulsion retired and projects stall, manufacture experts say.
Margarita Nieves, manager of the Colombian Offshore Wind Research Network, told The Associated Press that contempt ample targets — including 1.1 gigawatts awarded successful a 2019 auction — lone 2 upwind farms are partially operating today, with a combined capableness of little than 32 megawatts.
Colombia’s Mining and Energy Planning Unit estimates the state could make up to 18 gigawatts of upwind vigor — astir treble the nation’s existent installed energy capableness of 20 gigawatts.
Several companies brought instrumentality and infrastructure to Colombia astir 2021 earlier securing permits, but parks stay unbuilt. Key obstacles see constricted grid transportation infrastructure successful La Guajira, caller regulatory changes that trim fiscal returns and analyzable societal and enactment challenges.
Colombia, Latin America’s third-most populous country, has pledged to scope net-zero emissions by 2050. President Gustavo Petro, the country’s archetypal leftist leader, presents himself arsenic an environmentalist and advocator of a conscionable vigor transition. Yet Colombia remains profoundly reliant connected fossil fuels — lipid is its apical export and a large root of authorities revenue.
In 2023, Italian multinational Enel withdrew from the Windpeshi onshore upwind vigor task successful La Guajira. By precocious 2024, EDP Renewables canceled 2 large projects, Alpha and Beta, 2 large-scale onshore upwind farms successful the aforesaid region. In May, Colombian state-owned lipid institution Ecopetrol acquired 9 star and upwind vigor projects from Norway’s Statkraft, marking the European firm’s exit from the country. The portfolio spans La Guajira, Sucre, Cordoba, Caldas, and Magdalena, with a combined imaginable capableness of 1.3 gigawatts. Only 1 task is presently operational, with others expected to travel online betwixt 2026 and 2027.
The determination is portion of Ecopetrol’s broader vigor modulation strategy to trim reliance connected lipid and state and conscionable net-zero goals by 2050. However, challenges similar regulatory delays, governance concerns, and imaginable impacts connected Colombia’s fiscal stableness rise questions astir the transition’s gait and economical effects.
Nieves warned that the concern is “very concerning,” with lone 2 of implicit 20 planned projects advancing. She stressed the request to velocity up regulatory processes, improve consultations with Indigenous communities — notably the Wayuu successful La Guajira — and guarantee capable electrical infrastructure.
“Colombia has much than 20 years of hold successful upwind energy,” Nieves said. “Brazil, successful contrast, has built implicit 1,300 onshore upwind farms successful the past 2 decades and is simply a apical planetary turbine producer."
The upwind vigor projects were portion of Colombia’s conscionable vigor transition, aiming to regenerate fossil fuels with renewables portion supporting susceptible groups similar Indigenous peoples. The portion is location to Cerrejon, 1 of the largest open-pit ember mines successful the satellite and a large subordinate successful Latin America’s mining sector, which has been successful cognition since 1985. The excavation has conscionable 9 years near successful its beingness span, and its closure, without alternate plans successful place, volition woody a important stroke to the region’s economy.
For Samuel Lanao, caput of La Guajira’s biology authority, the main crushed respective licensed renewable vigor projects are being sold disconnected is due to the fact that companies conflict with deep-rooted societal tensions, peculiarly during the anterior consultation process with section Indigenous communities. Lanao said confrontations person emerged betwixt firms and residents, derailing expectations of development.
“This has been a large stroke to La Guajira,” helium said, “as determination were precocious hopes for economical and societal advancement done these projects.”
The Wayuu people, a seminomadic Indigenous radical successful the arid La Guajira portion of bluish Colombia and Venezuela, stay divided implicit upwind vigor development. While immoderate person welcomed the economical enactment offered by companies gathering turbines connected their ancestral lands, galore others person raised concerns implicit biology and taste impacts, and a deficiency of meaningful anterior consultation, successful what is 1 of Colombia’s poorest regions.
Diego Patron, manager of the Jemeiwaa Ka’I upwind project, a large-scale upwind workplace clump successful La Guajira, acknowledged the pioneering quality of Colombia’s aboriginal upwind efforts, which began successful a regulatory vacuum without wide organization frameworks.
“These foundational projects faced a steep organization and territorial learning curve, resulting successful the nonaccomplishment of cardinal strategical projects,” Patron said. “However, their bequest present forms the cornerstone for caller initiatives."
Patron believes that barriers astir morganatic Wayuu assemblage representation, biology permitting, and declaration resolutions person been overcome, creating much unchangeable conditions.”
Patron said misinformation deepened tensions and unfairly damaged firms similar EDP that, helium says, aimed to enactment communities.
___
The Associated Press’ clime and biology sum receives fiscal enactment from aggregate backstage foundations. AP is solely liable for each content. Find AP’s standards for moving with philanthropies, a database of supporters and funded sum areas astatine AP.org.
English (US) ·