Colombia officially launches 3rd auction for renewables

The Colombian government on Friday officially launched the third call for tenders for the installation of the so-called non-conventional renewable energy projects.

The ministry of mines and energy said the auction would take place no later than October 31, 2021.

Much of the auction rules and conditions were announced this spring, but what is new is that the winning projects have to start delivering the contracted electricity as of January 1, 2023. The ministry’s draft resolution on the auction in April stated that the power delivery should commence on December 1, 2022.

Other announced prerequisites still apply:

-- power generation projects of 5 MW and above can participate,

-- to be eligible, projects must be registered with Colombia’s mining and energy planning unit UPME and approved at least at stage two,

-- projects should have connection rights secured,

-- projects that had been assigned power purchase agreements (PPAs) in the 2019 auction rounds are still eligible to participate this time, but their power output can only be offered for the block 3, which runs from 1700 to midnight.

Winning projects will be entitled to 15-year PPAs.

In addition, the new auction model does not impose conditions on participating power off-takers that would limit their offer, but power generators cannot offer any capacity that is not generated by their proposed project, the ministry said.

The targeted demand will be revealed once the offers from power generators and the off-takers are received.

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