Over the past decade, Colombia has set increasingly ambitious renewable energy goals. In 2020 alone, the government pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51 percent and install 4,000 megawatts of new, non-hydro, renewable electricity by 2030 - about 24 percent of the country’s projected electricity capacity. These goals aren’t just promises - in 2019, the government took its first steps toward achieving these targets by launching a renewable energy auction for 1,374 MW of new wind and solar power generation. While this action is an important start, the country will need to significantly ramp up its efforts over the coming years. Assuming the auction’s resources come online by 2022, Colombia still must install an average of 280 MW each year for the subsequent nine years in order to reach the government’s goal. This means adding about 55 percent more renewables capacity each year than the country had built in total prior to January 2020. In the Latin America region broadly, these aggressive investments in renewable energy could directly create 3.2 million jobs, nearly 8 percent of the projected total under a green energy transformation. Achieving this level of clean energy capacity will be challenging, but one major way Colombia can get there is by engaging the private sector - and in particular, commercial and industrial (C&I) companies, which represent more than half of the country’s electricity demand. Many large C&I energy buyers in the country already have started to explore renewable energy solutions that shift their energy consumption to new sources that are both cleaner and less expensive. Market data from 2018 and 2019 shows that solar companies in Colombia can provide C&I customers with on-site renewable generation options at significantly lower rates than current grid prices, offering electricity cost savings up to 20 percent. While the potential benefits are significant, understanding how to navigate the process... |