Colombia’s energy minister on advancing the green transition

October 30, 2024

Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy Andrés Camacho Morales talks to The Energy Year about how the government is advancing Colombia’s energy transition, the mechanisms put in place for encouraging investment in clean energy and the continuing strategic importance of natural gas and minerals.

This interview is featured in The Energy Year Colombia 2025

What are the pillars on which Colombia’s energy transition will rest?
The Fair Energy Transition roadmap lays out a process that involves not only the transition to a cleaner energy generation matrix in the country but also deploys a comprehensive vision of equity and territorial development that offers job opportunities, access and quality in the energy service in areas with high energy poverty, as well as reindustrialisation and productive diversification in regional terms.
Among others, we can list seven fundamental bases of the fair energy transition process. First, it aims to strengthen the value chains of technologies associated with NCRE [non-conventional renewable energy sources] with the aim of moving towards productive and re-industrialised economies that contribute to economic diversification and new sectors of the economy.
Secondly, it aims to advance the democratisation of energy systems and the strengthening of communities, users and territorial entities in the implementation of NCRE technologies.
Third is the goal of gradually moving away from fossil fuels as the backbone of decarbonisation with components of gradualism, efficiency, reliability and planning.
A fourth pillar is to promote management in alliance with national territories to advance NCRE projects in order to improve the conditions of local populations and territorial peace processes.
Fifth, it aims to advance the integration of new energy sources that are aligned with the diversification of the energy matrix under a focus on sustainability and justice for the improvement of energy efficiency and the final uses of new energy sources.
Sixth, it aims to build new guidelines for mineral production where the need for social and environmental guidelines is understood within the planning, implementation and eventual closure of mining projects.
And lastly, the seventh pillar is to promote the modernisation of the electricity system and its end uses with a focus on fairness and sustainability.

How has the government taken action to advance the energy transition?
During this government, we have made great strides in implementing the transition. These include adding more energy to reach 6 GW of NCRE by 2026. When the Government of Change took office, the country had only 166 MW of NCRE in commercial operation. Today we have more than 1.2 GW of NCRE in commercial operation – 10 times more than what we had at the beginning of the government’s tenure – and a total of more than 1.8 GW of NCRE (testing and commercial), injecting energy into the National Interconnected System.
We have also advanced the National Energy Communities Strategy. The National Energy Communities Strategy was launched on May 17, 2024, in Bojayá with the delivery of 23 educational energy communities in Chocó. With this programme, the country’s communities will be able to generate the energy they consume through bioenergy projects, solar energy, or small hydroelectric plants, meeting the specific needs of their populations. To date, we have inaugurated 28 Energy Communities, located in the departments of Chocó, Guainía and Sucre.
In addition, a bill was drafted for the creation of the Colombian Minerals Company (Empresa Colombiana de Minerales – Ecominerales), which was submitted to Congress on December 14, 2023. This company aims to achieve better conditions for the implementation of public policies on the formalisation of the production circuits of artisanal mining, as well as small- and medium-scale mining, and the use of strategic minerals for a fair energy transition and the reindustrialisation of the national economy.
Lastly, Colombia has become the first country in the Latin America and Caribbean region to develop a competitive process for the construction of offshore wind energy projects. In an area of approximately 12,000 square kilometres, covering the departments of Atlántico, Bolívar, Sucre and Magdalena, areas with a maximum of 270 square kilometres can be nominated for wind energy production.

Tell us about how you are incentivising local and foreign investment in the renewables scene via different bid rounds.
We are currently developing the offshore bid round for wind energy projects in the Caribbean Sea. This round was launched at COP28 and is currently in the proponent qualification stage. We expect to close 2025 with allocations of offshore areas that can add up to installed capacities of between 1 GW and 3 GW of very low-emissions, reliable energy needed to address climate change.
The proponents will be qualified by September this year, and by the first quarter of 2025, the administrator of the process (the National Hydrocarbons Agency) will receive the bids and then allocate permits for offshore areas to those with the best conditions to successfully develop the projects together with national companies.
In addition, in order to encourage local and foreign investment in the mining and energy sector, a number of market-enabling signals have been put in place, among them:

• Provision of primary information of very high value to reduce investor risk
• Definition of installed capacity targets reaching 18 GW in 2052 according to the National Energy Plan
• Formulation of the regulation to ensure the connection to the winning projects of the round
• Design of a mechanism that guarantees the return on investment of the parks and also benefits the users
• Construction of a logistics and port development strategy
• Development of various studies together with international partners relevant to the investment projects

Beyond that, we are working to modernise energy planning to dynamise the energy market by including mechanisms that support the advantages of NCREs, and by building regulatory and normative solutions to reduce the risk of delays in the startup of projects through better conditions and multi-agency articulation in environmental licensing processes, prior consultation, etc.

 

What potential does La Guajira have to become a regional energy powerhouse and how are you aligning the energy transition with the wellbeing of the communities in this area?
The first thing to note is that La Guajira has geographical conditions that make the department a favourable territory for the implementation of NCRE projects. This department has great wind and solar potential. In addition, the maritime location of La Guajira makes the department a potential epicentre for green hydrogen projects as an export resource.
Currently, the Mining and Energy Planning Unit (UPME) has assigned connection points for NCRE until 2029 equivalent to 17,396.01 MW, where La Guajira is the second department with the highest potential in the country.
The viability of these projects requires constant co-ordination with the community. These are projects that benefit the whole country. In June this year, for example, we were able to obtain the environmental licence for the second phase of the Colectora project, allowing us to move forward with the construction of the new Colectora 500-kV substation and the power line in the Colectora (La Guajira) and Cuestecitas (Cesar) section. This will allow 2.3 GW of energy to be connected to the National Interconnected System from NCRE projects in Cesar and La Guajira), representing 6% of the installed capacity and 9.6% of the country’s maximum demand.
In La Guajira alone, we have already carried out prior consultations with 812 ethnic communities. These projects generate employment and strengthen the electricity infrastructure in the region. However, energy poverty in La Guajira forces us to promote programmes such as Energy Communities which address the local populations’ energy problems. La Guajira is among the departments with the most targeted Energy Communities in the country, and we are already building 125 Energy Communities in the department.

How are “Energy Communities” or “Energy Districts” materialising the concepts of energy democratisation and energy decentralisation?
President Petro told the UN Security Council last week that it was necessary to combat territorial inequality in order to overcome violence in the country. Energy communities and municipalities are aiming for territorial equality. The UPME’s Municipal Electric Energy Coverage Index shows that the Pacific, La Guajira, Orinoco and Amazon are the regions with the lowest energy service coverage in the country.
This problem is related to the National Interconnected System, which transports energy from generation plants to users. We have large developments that interconnect the Andean region. This is also the region that concentrates the large hydroelectric plants that generate a large part of the energy consumed by Colombians.
After years of underdevelopment in certain regions, Colombia’s energy sector has a debt to pay in the form of territorial inclusion. For this reason, Energy Communities is an electrification plan that allows organisations in their own territories to manage the energy they need and turn it into an engine for progress. In this programme, we focus on communities within regions with high energy poverty and provide a decentralised solution that, in turn, favours a different relationship between the user and the energy.
Energy is no longer a commodity, as in traditional systems, but a common good that is managed by the communities. Our ministry has targeted a total of 2,475 Energy Communities, of which 1,719 are located in ZOMAC and PDET municipalities.

How crucial is natural gas to Colombia’s energy security and self-sufficiency?
The discovered resources of natural gas at the national level constitute an important potential for adding supply and contributing to the country’s energy supply and security in the coming years. The development of these projects requires a series of solutions in terms of transport infrastructure to enable their interconnection with demand and contribute to their commercial viability, as well as firm commitments to investment and administrative and operational management to overcome the various contingencies that limit their reclassification as reserves.
Advancing in the enabling of discovered resources will allow us to guarantee the security of national supply and the reliability of the natural gas service in the short, medium and long term. New offshore projects represent an aggregate potential in the order of 2.803 bcf, similar to the proven reserves currently estimated. As long as the investment plans established for drilling and development of treatment infrastructure and connection to the national transport system are implemented, it is expected that these projects will begin to be commercialised by the end of this decade.

In the mining sector, the new Mining Law has been proposed. How will this proposal empower the sector and promote more formal, fair and sustainable mining?
The new Mining Law seeks to organise mining in the country and fill several gaps in the mining model. To this end, we aim to move forward on five pillars.
The first is planned mining, which proposes a socio-environmental approach and productive diversification that responds to the challenges posed by the climate change crisis, and that is aligned with land-use planning around water and the protection of strategic ecosystems.
The second is mining with high standards, which promotes modernisation in the mining contracting process to ensure the dynamism of the sector and the participation of its actors in the phases of the mining cycle.
The third is purposeful mining, which seeks to secure the minerals required for the country to move towards reindustrialisation, productive diversification and the Fair Energy Transition.
The fourth is inclusive mining, proposing special provisions and differential protection measures for artisanal, semi-technified and small-scale mining.
And lastly, the fifth is mining knowledge management, making information systems a feasible tool for governance and decision-making.

How is the extraction of strategic minerals essential to the energy transition being encouraged in Colombia?
The country’s mining policy is in a process of transition that focuses on the responsible extraction of strategic mineral resources, not only for export as raw materials but also for transformation into final or intermediate products that strengthen production chains and boost the national economy.
The government’s goal is to generate a more diversified and industrialised economy in areas suitable for mining activity. The national government is prioritising a series of strategic minerals defined by the National Mining Agency (ANM) which are fundamental to diversifying the national economy and which effectively demonstrate the country’s geological potential. These minerals include copper and nickel.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy has been working on four fronts to achieve the extraction and then the transformation of strategic minerals.
The first is the National Plan of Geoscientific Knowledge, whose implementation will make it possible to know the real geological potential around the main strategic minerals in the country.
The second is the new Mining Law, which seeks to establish stable and legitimate conditions at the territorial level, allowing for an unambiguous definition of where mining can and cannot be carried out, reducing the conflict and litigation that currently characterises many mining projects.
The third is the creation of the Colombian Minerals Company (Econominerales) as a state ally for mining, which allows risk-sharing in key segments of the activity.
Finally, the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the ANM have been building studies and projects around the production chains in the different strategic minerals, which allow us to generate alliances between the private, public and popular sectors in order to generate productive linkages.

What are the fundamental objectives and goals proposed by the ministry for the period 2024-2026?
The Ministry of Mines and Energy has structured its strategic planning within the framework of three pillars – energy, hydrocarbons and mining – on which strong foundations are laid and significant steps are taken for the country’s Fair Energy Transition.
In the energy pillar, we seek to promote energy as the axis of productive development, as a tool to improve the living conditions of communities and as an environmentally responsible sector. Our main goals in this pillar are to reach 6 GW in electricity generation capacity from NCRE, to massify the Energy Communities programme and to reduce energy tariff costs.
The mining pillar seeks to implement responsible mining through comprehensive planning, the use of mineral resources and respect for environmental conditions. In this pillar, as mentioned, we worked on the new Mining Law, on the issuing of the National Plan for Geoscientific Knowledge and on the creation of Ecominerales. In addition, we are working on the delimitation of Mining Districts to promote an effective presence of the State in mining territories, providing comprehensive alternatives to the communities for the exercise of mining activity or for labour and productive reconversion. We have made progress especially in the departments of Antioquia, Chocó and Nariño.
In the hydrocarbons pillar, we are focusing our efforts on energy exploration. This involves the generation of efficiency plans in hydrocarbons exploration and production, as well as in the promotion of new energy sources such as hydrogen and geothermal energy, which will allow us to anticipate international trends that open up economic opportunities for these new industries.

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