An ANIF report cited by Valora Analitik on May 22 puts hard historical numbers behind what Colombia's electricity sector is bracing for: every significant El Niño event of the past two decades has produced sharp spikes in residential electricity bills, driven by the system's structural dependence on hydroelectric generation (around 62% of effective installed capacity) and the much higher cost of the thermal backup that fills the gap when reservoirs run low.
Read moreAn El Tiempo investigation by Laura Lesmes Díaz offers the most comprehensive reconstruction to date of how Air-e arrived at its current crisis -- and makes a pointed argument that the distributor's collapse is not simply a legacy of private mismanagement but was significantly accelerated by the state's own handling of the intervention.
Read moreTwo opinion columns published in El Heraldo days apart arrive at the same place from opposite directions -- and together map the central contradiction of Colombia's Caribbean energy situation with unusual clarity.
Read moreWith El Niño already in a probability of 96% by year-end, Barranquilla's district administration has launched a two-track response combining immediate household demand-management guidance with longer-term urban climate adaptation investments.
Read moreWith climate models now placing the probability of a strong or very strong El Niño closing out 2026 at 96%, Colombia's association of capital cities, Asocapitales, has launched a coordinated national preparedness initiative that brings together the national disaster risk management agency (UNGRD), IDEAM, the Colombian Red Cross, and several ministries.
Read moreJuan Ricardo Ortega, CEO of Grupo Energía Bogotá (GEB), gave one of the most candid public assessments to date of Colombia's electricity and gas supply outlook in an interview covering El Niño preparedness, gas pricing dysfunction, reservoir management, the state of GEB's transmission projects, and the political environment surrounding the sector.
Read moreThe municipality of Galapa, in Atlántico department, has been subject to rolling power cuts for several weeks caused by overloading of the circuit serving the town, triggering community protests and blockades on the Cordialidad highway.
Read moreA May 13 commentary by IEA analysts Laura Cozzi, Marina Petrelli, and Arthur Roge documents how the 2026 Middle East conflict has produced an energy crisis with a dimension absent from previous shocks: the disruption of cooking fuel supplies for billions of people in emerging and developing economies, with consequences that extend from household food security to long-term clean energy transitions.
Read moreAtlas Renewable Energy is the latest international solar developer to join what El Tiempo calls Colombia's "1,000 MW club" -- a cohort of investors with announced targets at or above the gigawatt threshold.
Read moreThe Región Administrativa y de Planificación del Caribe (RAP Caribe) used its third Caribbean Energy Roundtable held in Barranquilla, to consolidate five months of technical work into a 49-measure action plan aimed squarely at the next national government.
Read moreColombia's Inspector General used a June 1 Asocapitales meeting on El Niño preparedness to deliver a pointed institutional message: the approaching climatic phenomenon cannot be managed as a water supply problem alone.
Read moreColombia's Comptroller General has issued a formal preventive fiscal control warning against the Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios (Superservicios), its Fondo Empresarial, and the intervened Caribbean distributor Air-e, producing what is arguably the most damning institutional indictment of the intervention since it began in September 2024.
Read moreWith the June 21 presidential runoff looming, Colombia's energy sector is watching the electoral cycle with unusual intensity. Not because either candidate's platform is unclear, but because analysts say the first hundred days of the new administration will send market signals that reverberate for years.
Read moreThe Air-e crisis has crossed into international arbitration. On April 27, 2026, Termocandelaria -- parent company of two of Colombia's largest thermoelectric plants, Termocandelaria and Termobarranquilla -- filed a claim against the Colombian state before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the World Bank's investment arbitration body.
Read moreGalapa, a municipality in Atlántico department, has become the first town in the department to face open, acknowledged electricity rationing by the government-intervened distributor Air-e and the editorial board of El Heraldo is not mincing words about what comes next.
Read moreRooftop solar is moving from environmental statement to household economics in Colombia, driven by a combination of falling equipment costs, grid-connected net metering rules, and a government program -- Colombia Solar -- explicitly designed to bring photovoltaic systems within reach of lower-income households.
Read moreThe Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos presented results from its 2024--2025 research program at the 5th International Natural Hydrogen Congress in May, confirming what the agency described as a significant step forward in understanding Colombia's geological potential for natural -- or "white" -- hydrogen.
Read moreColombia's Ministry of Environment issued a circular to all autonomous regional corporations, urban environmental authorities, and local governments on May 28, setting out ten operational directives for managing the El Niño phenomenon expected to consolidate in the second half of 2026 and potentially extend into early 2027.
Read moreJuan Ricardo Ortega, president of Grupo Energía Bogotá, told W Radio's 6AM program on May 28 that electricity tariffs in Colombia face an upward trajectory over the coming months, driven by three interlocking cost pressures that are coinciding at a moment of unusual vulnerability for the national energy system.
Read moreWhen the Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos intervened Air-e in September 2024, the Caribbean distributor's debt stood at approximately CoP$530B. By April 30, 2026 -- twenty months and five administrators later -- it had reached CoP$2.3T, an increase of more than 350%.
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Colombia's thermal generation sector has been burning significantly more fuel since mid-May, with XM data showing coal consumption at thermal plants rising 47.9% between January and May 2026 -- from 132.7 to 196.3 GBTUd -- and gas consumption rising 65.1%, from 122.2 to 201.7 GBTUd.
Read moreNencol 5, the 2,240 MWp gas-fired thermal plant awarded a firm energy obligation in the May 22 reliability charge auction, is nominally the most consequential single result of that process -- representing 55% of the 4,069.7 MWp of new capacity assigned and 4.5% of all firm energy committed. However, El Tiempo's investigation into the project and the man behind it raises serious doubts about whether any of that will materialize.
Read moreThe Consejo Gremial Nacional issued an urgent public appeal on May 29 to the government, the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and CREG to act immediately on what it described as a real and imminent risk of both electricity and gas supply failure. Industry sources speaking anonymously to Portafolio were starker still: "we need a miracle to save ourselves from the blackout."
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With El Niño rapidly approaching, planners are naturally concerned with the expected drop off in hydrogeneration and what they can use to replace it. Traditionally, it would be thermogeneration but, if the “Illuminati” still run the show after August 7th, they will want to use solar. We update our solar-related charts with five full months of 2026 in the books.
Read moreSimón Gaviria, writing in El Heraldo, argues that Colombia's energy debate is stuck in the wrong century.
Read moreThe Petro administration issued Decree 0526 on May 21, amending Decree 1073 of 2015 and fundamentally broadening the mandate of the Fondo de Energía Social (FOES) -- the fund that has historically financed electricity bill discounts for stratum 1 and 2 households.
Read moreColombia's 23 monitored hydroelectric reservoirs closed May at 66.38% of capacity -- a 2.35 percentage-point improvement over April's 64.03% but still well short of the 80% analysts consider the minimum safe level for withstanding a prolonged dry period.
Read morePromigas closed the acquisition of 100% of Zelestra Latam on May 28, adding a three-country renewable energy platform to its historically gas-focused portfolio and entering Chile as a new market for the first time.
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The expected candidates made it through to the second round and official government candidate Iván Cepeda got the approximately 40% of the vote that the polls said he would. But Abelardo de la Espriella surprised by getting over 43% and coming first.
Read moreThe Petro administration declared the May 22 reliability charge auction a resounding success, claiming it exceeded projected demand by 8%. Industry analysts, the power generators industry association Andeg, and the auction's most controversial winner all spent the following week telling a different story.
Read moreAlejandro Castañeda, president of the power generators industry association Andeg, declared on May 27 that Colombia faces a high probability of a blackout in March and April of next year, the product of three simultaneous failures: an undersized reliability charge auction, the financial collapse of Caribbean distributor Air-e, and the approaching El Niño phenomenon.
Read moreColombia's National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) issued a public clarification on May 28 pushing back against media reports that implied the Hidroituango hydroelectric project required new regulatory approvals to raise its reservoir to 420 meters above sea level.
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