Diego Mesa, Minister of Mines and Energy of Colombia, elaborated on the development history and current situation of the photovoltaic industry in Colombia, and introduced the details of the latest projects, including the largest photovoltaic park built by Italian Anilu Group in Colombia and Canada The first large-scale battery storage project deployed by a solar company in the country. Mesa pointed out that the photovoltaic market in Colombia is developing rapidly. A total of 710MW of PV systems have been installed in the country so far, most of which are grid-connected PV systems.

Mesa described the history of photovoltaics in Colombia, which passed legislation in 2014 to promote renewable energy. But it wasn't until four years later that aggressive incentives and measures were introduced. So until 2018, only one PV system with an installed capacity of 18MW was installed nationwide. Considering Colombia's solar radiation levels are about 60 percent higher than the global average, the installed capacity of the country's photovoltaic systems does not match its abundant solar resources, Mesa noted.

Improve the policy environment

With an improved policy environment, including attractive tax incentives, contracts to install 2.8 gigawatts of PV systems have been awarded in three public auctions in Colombia, with incentives to install more PV systems. "Nowadays, I hold an inauguration ceremony for a photovoltaic farm almost every other week," Mesa said. Italy's Enel Green Power is currently leading the country's photovoltaic market. The company's largest PV installation in Colombia to date was connected to the grid six weeks ago. Developed and owned by Enel Green Power, the 187MW PV farm in Aaloma has more installed capacity than Colombia until last year, according to the latest statistics released by the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Enel Green Power built an 87MW photovoltaic farm in El Paso, Cesar province in 2019. Photovoltaic and battery storage makers Canadian Solar and Trina Solar are also the first to enter the Colombian market. Trina Solar developed a 100-megawatt photovoltaic farm, which was then sold to Isagen, a Colombian utility. 60MW of this PV farm has already been commissioned and another 40MW will be commissioned this quarter. "Self-generation" is another popular business model for photovoltaic systems, especially in Colombia's oil and gas industry. Mesa said, “Tomorrow I will go to Casanara province, a traditional oil and gas production area, to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of a photovoltaic power plant deployed by an oil and gas operator. Although its installed capacity is only 7MW. For self-generation applications, this is enough. ” Mesa also mentioned two other such PV systems, one opened late last year (61MW) and the other in 2020 (25MW).

Just last month, Colombia began construction of the largest PV plant in South America (excluding Brazil). Enegreen Power is also a backer of the project. The 500-megawatt photovoltaic farm will be completed by the end of 2022 and connected to the Colombian grid early next year. Mesa expects public auction prices for PV projects in the country to fall further, ranging from $0.025/kWh to $0.027/kWh. However, he also predicted that PV system installed capacity growth will slow due to supply chain constraints for PV modules.

market diversification

Public auctions will continue to be an important policy tool for building a strong PV market in Colombia, but the emergence of private auctions will help diversify the overall market, Mesa said. Colombia's nascent distributed generation (DG) market needs more legislative action to introduce more competition, and distributed rooftop PV is a market Mesa is keen to develop.

Grid constraints further restrain the market growth, but the transmission expansion plan passed in Colombia in 2019 should accelerate the pace of grid connection. New onshore and offshore transmission capacity will help bring more renewable energy to the country's load centres, which could include the adoption of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology in the near future. However, the deployment of large-scale grid-scale battery storage systems will accelerate as part of the country's transmission expansion plans, Mesa noted. Last summer, Canadian Solar deployed a 50-megawatt battery storage project to support the grid as part of a bid. The stand-alone battery storage system will start operating in June next year.

In conclusion, he concluded that while Colombia is a late starter in the global PV industry, a lot of action and further investment can be expected this year and in the years to come. The landmark 500MW Guayepo photovoltaic project developed by Enegreen Power has put Colombia in the global photovoltaic market; the 50MW battery energy storage project being deployed by Canadian Solar will mark more development opportunities for battery energy storage systems in the Colombian market.Editor/XingWentao