Colombia launches second round of large-scale renewable energy auctions

    The Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy this week launched the country's second round of large-scale Residential Solar Power Systems energy project auctions. This round of procurement activities was originally scheduled to be held in the first quarter of this year, but was subsequently postponed due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

    Projects with a scale of no more than 5MW will be eligible to participate in this round of procurement. The selected developers will be awarded a 15-year PPA, but the condition is that commercial operations must be started on January 1, 2023. In the country's first round of renewable energy auctions that ended in October 2019, the National Ministry of Mines and Energy Planning (UPME) allocated 2.2 GW of solar and wind power generation capacity, and the final average electricity price was COP95/kWh ($0.026) , The highest bid is only COP110 ($0.03).

    In this auction, the selected project must be put into operation before January 1, 2023. The contract is linked to the Colombian peso and is updated based on the producer price index certified by the Colombian National Administration of Statistics.

    According to the latest data from the International Renewable Energy Agency, as of the end of 2020, Colombia's installed photovoltaic capacity is approximately 107 MW.