Atlántico governor and RAP Caribe president Eduardo Verano told the Inspector General’s newly installed technical roundtable in Bogotá that Colombia's electricity crisis won't be solved with temporary measures, arguing instead for a fundamental review of sector regulation and how the energy chain is currently organized.
Read moreThe Inspector General’s office will formally investigate former Minister of Mines and Energy Edwin Palma and former Superintendent of Public Services Elmer Felipe Durán over their alleged roles in worsening the crisis at intervened utility Air-e.
Read moreFormer Attorney General Francisco Barbosa writes in El Heraldo that Air-e's crisis illustrates a distinct kind of supply risk: a "financial blackout" that doesn't require empty reservoirs to disrupt service.
Read moreSergio Arturo Piñeros Botero was sworn in August 13 as director of the Agencia Nacional de Licencias Ambientales (ANLA), the agency responsible for licensing hydrocarbons, electricity, and other infrastructure projects nationwide, succeeding Irene Vélez Torres.
Read moreInspector General Gregorio Eljach Pacheco installed a permanent technical roundtable on "paz energética" at his office this week, bringing together the government, regional authorities, sector agents, and control bodies to move from diagnosing Colombia's energy crisis toward folding solutions into the new 2026-2030 National Development Plan.
Read moreThe Inspector General's office is investigating a contract Air-e signed with China National Machinery Exports and Imports Corporation to finance up to CoP$1T in electrical infrastructure work, adding fresh alarm to a sector already watching the utility's finances closely.
Read moreColombia has designated 998,576 hectares of rural land as Areas Protected for the Production of Food (APPA) as of July, created under the Petro government's Agriculture Ministry to safeguard land for food production and security.
Read moreColombia's Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Mauricio Gómez Amín, reported progress strengthening economic ties with Japan following strategic meetings in Tokyo, part of a government push to attract investment across agroindustry, technology, automotive manufacturing, and the transition to a sustainable economy.
Read moreSpeaking at Asobancaria's Banking Convention in Cartagena, Inspector General Gregorio Eljach warned that municipal governments and public entities need to get current on their electricity debts to relieve pressure on the sector's finances, confirming his office has opened disciplinary investigations over unpaid utility bills.
Read more
Colombia's electricity demand is projected to grow roughly 10% between 2026 and 2030, per UPME estimates cited at Andeg's 13th Energy Forum, straining a system already contending with delayed transmission projects.
Read moreAndeg president Alejandro Castañeda told the association's energy forum that despite tight physical supply and rising demand, the system's most immediate threat isn't a lack of energy but the financial state of the companies that generate it.
Read moreThe national government, through the Ministries of Finance and Mines and Energy, committed CoP$1.5T to Colombia's electricity sector under the newly named "Energy Plan NOW," aimed at protecting service continuity amid a payment-chain liquidity crisis affecting generators, transmitters, distributors, and commercializers.
Read moreFormer Minister Amylkar Acosta argues in this El Heraldo column that delays in building transmission lines and substations have stopped being a purely technical problem and become a direct cost passed to consumers – when the grid can't move power efficiently, the system falls back on more expensive generation, and that markup flows straight into household and business tariffs.
Read more
XM's wholesale market manager Jaime Alejandro Zapata told Andeg's 13th Energy Forum in Barranquilla that UPME projects Sistema Interconectado Nacional demand growing roughly 10% between 2026 and 2030, pressuring both system supply and the transmission network.
Read moreDeputy Minister of Energy Armando José Cuello said technical teams across the Ministry of Mines and Energy, CREG, and the Environment and Finance ministries are reviewing every available option to keep Colombia's electricity system stable through El Niño, though he stopped short of saying blackout risk is fully off the table.
Read more
Minister of Mines and Energy María Nohemí Arboleda's administration reported a fast pivot from diagnosis to action in its first ten days, centered on institutional coordination to stabilize energy supply and tighten control over public resources.
Read moreGrupo EPM's electricity marketing companies in Colombia will implement a transitional incentive program for efficient electricity use, created by the CREG through Resolución CREG 101120 de 2026, aimed at reducing regulated demand during periods of energy scarcity, low rainfall, and supply reliability risk.
Read moreAndeg president Alejandro Castañeda struck an optimistic tone on the sector's relationship with the incoming government ahead of the association's 13th Energy Forum in Barranquilla.
Read moreCREG executive director Adriana Jiménez said the sector's central challenge is coordinating simultaneous technological transitions across generation, grids, storage, and end users into a sustainable, integrated system, rather than regulating each shift separately.
Read moreThe Ministry of Mines and Energy issued Circular 40034, requiring every ministry, decentralized entity, and other national-level government body to design and implement an Action Plan for energy savings and efficient use within 15 business days.
Read moreThe previous government announced Colombia's most recent Reliability Charge auction, held May 22nd as a success – 15 new generation projects plus an existing plant's expansion, an estimated CoP$16T in investment, and 4,069.7 MW of new capacity assigned to meet demand for December 2029-November 2030. But …
Read moreAir-e's intervening agent, Jaime Mesa Buitrago, detailed new tiered electricity tariffs at a Consejo Nacional de Operación de Gas (CNO Gas) meeting in Barranquilla led by then Minister Edwin Palma, under which consumers who reduce usage can earn discounts of up to 40%, while those exceeding set thresholds will pay progressively more.
Read moreColombia's National Council for Economic and Social Policy (CONPES) approved the country's first National Hydrogen Policy document, with then-MinEnergia Edwin Palma casting a favorable vote in the non-in-person session, establishing an intersectoral roadmap to develop hydrogen as a strategic sector through 2031.
Read moreColombia's electric vehicle boom has shifted the industry's central challenge from selling cars to building the network that keeps them moving.
Read moreMaría Nohemí Arboleda, sworn in as Colombia's new Minister of Mines and Energy under President Abelardo De la Espriella, summarized the state of the sector bluntly in her first hours in office: "the situation is critical, but not lost."
Read moreThe Asociación Nacional de Empresas de Servicios Públicos y Comunicaciones (Andesco) delivered a "critical" balance of the Petro government's energy record as it left office, warning the incoming administration faces financial, regulatory, and supply risks despite genuine transition-era progress over the past decade.
Read moreColombia's average wholesale spot price reached CoP$562.1/kWh in June 2026, up 395.7% from CoP$113.4/kWh in June 2025 and 8.9% from May, driven by increased thermal generation's share of the mix.
Read moreAn El Espectador retrospective on the Petro government's energy record found sharp disagreement on the electricity side, where genuine renewable-capacity gains sit alongside execution delays and a financial crisis at one of the Caribbean's main distributors.
Read moreThe Household Public Services User League (Liga Nacional de Usuarios de los Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios) pushed back against former Minister Edwin Palma's plan to penalize energy waste during the current drought.
Read moreOn Friday, August 7th Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in as Colombia’s President for 2026 to 2030, a critical period for the county’s energy sector.
Read moreVice President José Manuel Restrepo presented findings from 62 technical transition meetings held with the General Controller, a process he called "historic" in the country's democratic life.
Read moreThe Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC) formally charged Enel Colombia, AES Colombia, and Celsia Colombia, finding preliminary evidence suggesting conduct that may have affected free economic competition in the Mercado de Energía Mayorista (MEM).
Read moreThe Inspector General’s First Delegate for State Contracting suspended Brayan Giraldo Ruiz, executive director of the Fondo de Energías No Convencionales y Gestión Eficiente de la Energía (Fenoge), for three months and opened a disciplinary investigation over alleged irregularities in a contracting process worth more than CoP$164,000 million
Read moreArmando Cuello Navarro, tapped as Vice Minister of Energy under incoming Minister María Nohemí Arboleda, arrives with direct electricity-sector operating experience: he most recently served as general manager of CEO (Compañía Energética de Occidente), the Cauca electricity distributor and Promigas subsidiary, where he led initiatives on innovation, operational efficiency, and sustainability.
Read moreThe Comisión de Regulación de Energía y Gas (CREG) announced progress on the long-running Colombia-Panama electricity interconnection project, publishing a Complementary Agreement with Panama's Autoridad Nacional de los Servicios Públicos (ASEP) that establishes the remuneration scheme for the interconnection
Read moreThe Ministry of Mines and Energy ordered every network operator in the country to mandatorily report information on connection points for generation, cogeneration, self-generation, distributed generation, and energy community projects currently in process, pending approval, awaiting energization, or rejected over the past twelve months,
Read moreThe Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios published "Generación Eléctrica en Colombia 2026: Concentración, Riesgos y Transición Energética," the first study from its new Observatorio de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios, identifying structural vulnerabilities in the national generation fleet even as the country advances on renewables.
Read moreThe Ministry of Mines and Energy is setting up a dedicated cybersecurity monitoring center (CMS) providing continuous monitoring, early threat detection, and coordinated incident response across the sector's technology infrastructure.
Read moreThe Ministry of Mines and Energy issued Resolución 40334, simplifying the connection process for public electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid charging stations to the electrical grid, aiming to accelerate deployment of what it called strategic infrastructure for the country's clean mobility transition.
Read moreThe Comisión de Regulación de Energía y Gas (CREG) formally approved a measure offering discounts of up to 40% on electricity bills for households that cut consumption by up to 30%, with surcharges applied to users who exceed reference consumption levels.
Read moreA public dispute broke out over Air-e's financial trajectory nearly two years into its government intervention, with Caribbean Region Users League coordinator Norman Alarcón directly challenging claims from SuperServicios Felipe Durán that more than 20 actions have been taken to stabilize the utility.
Read moreColombia's Constitutional Court reviewed three decrees issued under the Economic Emergency declared by Decreto 150 de 2026 in response to the extreme weather event of early 2026, upholding most measures while striking some provisions and conditioning others to the actually affected areas.
Read moreGrupo Energía Bogotá president Juan Ricardo Ortega delivered his most detailed public assessment yet of Colombia's transmission crisis through two Valora Analitik pieces in consecutive days -- a letter to president-elect De la Espriella and a direct interview. Read together, they form a comprehensive indictment of four years of energy infrastructure paralysis and a precise warning about what comes next if it continues.
Read moreDelivered at the inauguration of a solar project in Manaure, La Guajira, Minister Edwin Palma's July 23rd call for telework and study-from-home schemes represents the most direct government intervention yet on the demand side of Colombia's El Niño preparedness.
Read moreThe resolution enabling private-sector electricity transactions between Colombia and Ecuador was confirmed legally on July 22, Minister Edwin Palma announced via X, clearing the way for the resumption of International Electricity Transactions (TIE) between the two countries in the coming days.
Read moreColombia's two most important La Guajira clean energy infrastructure announcements of the transition period arrived together on July 24: the Colectora 500 kV transmission line -- the dedicated highway for Guajira wind energy -- reaching 90% overall construction completion, and a draft regulatory resolution designed to prevent the wind projects that will connect to it from being cancelled due to the planning mismatches that have dogged Colombia's renewable buildout.
Read moreThe first invoices under the Colombia Solar program have arrived in the Villas de San Pablo neighborhood of Barranquilla -- and the numbers are striking.
Read more
This morning I read a Bloomberg Energy newsletter piece about the growing disenchantment with LNG for Asian emerging markets importering countries and it got me thinking, again, about the long-term impact on the global energy matrix of the Iran War.
Read moreThe outgoing Petro government issued two related but distinct resolutions in the final weeks of its mandate that together address the structural problems most frequently cited for Colombia's electricity supply crisis: the chronic disconnect between generation and transmission project planning, and the grid's vulnerability to high-impact disruptions from extreme weather, equipment failure, and cyberattack.
Read moreThe outgoing Petro government recorded an important achievement: Colombia's installed capacity in solar and wind energy reached 4,626.73 MWp as of July 17th, 2026, surpassing the 4 GWp milestone of the administration's flagship 6GW+ program and representing a more than twenty-fold expansion from the approximately 200 MWp of non-conventional renewable capacity the government inherited in August 2022.
Read moreThe Comisión de Regulación de Energía y Gas (CREG) has named economist Adriana Jiménez Delgado as executive director for a 12-month term, formalized under Resolution CREG 105 015 of 2026.
Read moreWith fewer than two weeks left in his administration, President Gustavo Petro declared a national disaster for the El Niño phenomenon on July 23rd – Colombia's first such declaration linked explicitly to an electricity supply emergency – and simultaneously ordered a CoP$4T budget reallocation to the National Disaster Risk Management Unit (UNGRD), bringing its total El Niño resources to CoP$8T.
Read moreA comprehensive El Heraldo analysis published July 26th, based on interviews with six sector leaders, delivers the most structured account yet of the structural failures that have placed Colombia in its most vulnerable energy position since the 1992 blackout.
Read moreColombia's electricity system enters its most exposed five-day window of 2026 on Thursday, when SPEC shuts for scheduled maintenance through August 3rd .
Read moreThe clearest articulation yet of why El Niño is simultaneously a gas crisis and an electricity crisis came from Tomás González in a recent interview with El Tiempo, in which the former Mines and Energy Minister mapped the convergence of pressures the de la Espriella government will face from day one.
Read moreOutgoing Minister Edwin Palma disclosed on July 22nd, at a Colombia Solar ceremony in Barranquilla, that the transition team coordinating the sector handover for the incoming De la Espriella government had sent the ministry an official written request to abstain from continuing to execute and expand the Colombia Solar program during the transition period.
Read morePetro's outgoing government filed its final tax reform before the new Congress on July 21st, placing the mining and energy sector at the center of fiscal controversy for the second time in four years.
Read moreThe President's Legal Secretary had several decrees in process on July 17th accepting senior official resignations, El Tiempo's Investigative Unit reported, as the outgoing Petro government entered its final three weeks.
Read moreColombia's Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Colombian Agricultural and Livestock Research Corporation (AGROSAVIA) have formalized a bilateral cooperation agreement with Thailand to develop bioenergy from agricultural and livestock waste.
Read more
Lazard's 2026 LCOE+ benchmark says renewables remain the cheapest new-build despite rising costs across all technologies.
Read moreColombia's Ministry of Mines and Energy hosted a five-day Regional Training Course on energy demand modelling organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Bogotá in early July, bringing together specialists and representatives from 13 Latin American and Caribbean member states.
Read morePresident Gustavo Petro requested and received the resignation of Mines and Energy Minister Edwin Palma on July 17th, placing ANH president Pablo Yesid Fajardo in temporary charge of the ministry with just over three weeks left in the government.
Read moreThe day after Abelardo de la Espriella's June 21 election victory, Colombia's energy and mining sector moved quickly from congratulating the incoming president to handing him the bill.
Read moreMinister Edwin Palma sent a formal letter to the CREG expert commissioners on July 8th, publicly rebuking the regulator for failing to implement the eight regulatory measures it committed to delivering in May to protect the national interconnected system during El Niño.
Read moreColombia's 2026 Multidimensional Energy Poverty Report (IPEM) confirmed on July 8 that the share of households in energy poverty fell from 22.3% in 2024 to 20.6% in 2025 – a 1.7 percentage point reduction equivalent to 227,532 households and 641,640 people exiting energy poverty in a single year.
Read moreThe Ministry of Mines and Energy presented its final four-year electricity sector balance on July 9, framing the Petro government's legacy as a structural transformation of Colombia's generation matrix – and using the occasion to publicly condemn the de la Espriella transition team's suspension of the energy sector handover process as an act of institutional irresponsibility with direct consequences for El Niño preparedness.
Read moreColombia's Ministry of Transport published a draft resolution on July 7th establishing the country's first comprehensive national regulatory framework for light electric personal urban mobility vehicles – covering electric scooters, skateboards, monowheels, and electric bicycles – as a second public comment round under Law 2486 of 2025.
Read moreThe designation of María Nohemí Arboleda as the incoming Mines and Energy Minister received an immediate institutional welcome from the Caribbean region on July 14, when the RAP Caribe – Colombia's Caribbean regional planning body – together with the Comités Intergremiales of Atlántico, Bolívar, Magdalena, Córdoba, Cesar, and Sucre jointly issued a statement of support and put forward a structured roadmap for the incoming minister to begin addressing the Caribbean energy crisis from day one.
Read moreThe Ministry of Mines and Energy published an updated regulatory framework for the Colombia Solar program on July 2, replacing the earlier 2026 resolution with a more detailed set of technical, financial, and operational rules governing how solar photovoltaic systems are installed in strata 1, 2, and 3 households connected to the national interconnected system.
Read moreVice president-elect José Manuel Restrepo made the economic cost of Colombia's energy crisis concrete on July 12th, posting on X after a meeting with sector leaders convened by El Tiempo that a blackout under current El Niño conditions would cost the country approximately CoP$204B per hour of lost supply.
Read moreColombia's electricity service quality improved measurably in 2025, with 74.6% of municipalities meeting the regulatory standard for interruption duration per user and 80.1% meeting the frequency standard, a meaningful step forward from 2024.
Read moreFor the electricity sector, the naming of María Nohemí Arboleda Arango as Minister of Mines and Energy is the most reassuring cabinet announcement of the transition period.
Read moreColombia's incoming government faces a climate scenario that has hardened since earlier in 2026.
Read moreA legal proceeding before the Administrative Tribunal of Cundinamarca has emerged as the sector's best near-term hope for unlocking the resources needed to keep Colombia's thermal generation fleet fueled through El Niño and Natalia Gutiérrez, president of the Consejo Gremial Nacional, used a detailed X thread on July 2 to call on the Tribunal to act urgently.
Read more
Colombia's industrial sector is paying the second-highest electricity tariff in Latin America, according to data from Asoenergía, the association representing Colombia's large industrial energy consumers.
Read moreAir-e Intervenida presented two strategic infrastructure projects to the UPME in early July, seeking financing from the Fondo de Apoyo Financiero para la Energización de Zonas Rurales (Finanical Support for Rural Electrification Fund, FAER) to strengthen electricity service in rural areas of Atlántico and Magdalena – the first time in a decade the Caribbean distributor had submitted projects to this fund.
Read moreColombia's energy and gas regulator CREG sent a delegation to Cartagena on July 6th for a two-day technical visit to Afinia and Grupo EPM, combining boardroom briefings with on-the-ground field tours through some of the city's most challenging electricity service zones.
Read moreThe electricity sector's immediate response to president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella's June 30 social media broadcast – in which he warned of an imminent energy crisis inherited from the outgoing government and pledged his administration would honor the state's obligations to the sector – was unambiguous: industry association leaders called it a "positive signal" that restores confidence across the entire electricity supply chain at the most critical possible moment.
Read moreThe regulatory backstory behind the Caribbean energy tariff crisis became clearer when El Heraldo published a 22-page letter that CREG sent to President Gustavo Petro and Minister Edwin Palma on November 28, 2025 – a document that had been sitting undisclosed until the ombudsmen of Barranquilla and Santa Marta revealed its existence.
Read moreThe most underreported dimension of Colombia's El Niño crisis is not the reservoir levels: it is the simultaneous convergence of scheduled maintenance at the country's largest generation plants with the precise period when the system most needs them available.
Read moreThe Caribbean electricity crisis became the first substantive policy commitment of the de la Espriella presidency even before his August 7th inauguration.
Read moreThe rationale behind EPM's decision to spin off 35 municipalities from Afinia into a new subsidiary called Energía Atenea is essentially one of financial quarantine: separating a territory with energy loss rates of 40% and bill collection rates of just 60% from the rest of Afinia's more functional operation.
Read moreThe Superintendency of Public Services signed a Agreed Management Program (PGA) with Empresa de Energía Eléctrica de Vichada – Electrovichada – placing the isolated department's electricity provider under a structured corrective and preventive framework after regulatory inspections found a combination of technical, operational, and financial deficiencies serious enough to threaten service continuity.
Read more
Colombia enters its seventh consecutive year of failing to commission the electricity generation capacity its own planning agency projected, according to XM data reported by Valora Analitik on June 27 -- and the timing could not be worse, with El Niño now confirmed and potentially extending into the first quarter of 2027.
Read moreColombia's incoming government faces an electricity system running a firm energy deficit that XM projects will widen every year through 2029.
Read moreJuan Ricardo Ortega, president of Grupo Energía Bogotá (GEB), issued one of the sharpest public warnings yet about Colombia's transmission infrastructure crisis in a conversation with ACIPET reported by Valora Analitik on June 26, framing Bogotá's energy restriction risk not as a future scenario but as a present reality already cutting off new industrial demand.
Read moreAir-e Intervenida issued a public statement seeking to calm the more than 1.3 million users in Atlántico, Magdalena, and La Guajira alarmed by President Petro's liquidation announcement, confirming that electricity service will continue with total normality and that Colombian public utility law prohibits liquidation from proceeding until a new operator has formally assumed service delivery.
Read moreAcolgen president Natalia Gutiérrez used a Semana interview published June 24 to deliver the electricity generators' industry association's most direct warning yet to the incoming government: the El Niño response agenda is not a transition-period discussion: it begins on inauguration day.
Read moreThe Superintendency of Public Services issued Circular Externa 20261000000624 on June 30, ordering all electricity, gas, water, sewerage, and waste collection companies in Colombia to activate their contingency plans without delay ahead of an El Niño event that IDEAM projects will intensify significantly from September onward, with the Andean and Caribbean regions most exposed.
Read moreXM's Bulletin 348, published June 27, delivered the starkest available measure of Colombia's renewable energy buildout failure: of the 4,475 MW expected to enter the national interconnected system during 2026, only 321 MW -- just 7.2% of the annual target -- had actually connected as of the report date.
Read moreMines and Energy Minister Edwin Palma used a June 18 visit to Sincelejo – for the handover of solar projects to market traders and families in Sucre – to publicly endorse the creation of a majority state-owned electricity commercializer for the Colombian Caribbean, framing it as the structural solution the region needs after what he described as decades of private-sector failure.
Read moreColombia dropped from 35th to 43rd place in the World Economic Forum's 2026 Energy Transition Index -- a ranking of 120 countries -- during the four years of a government that made decarbonization and the acceleration of the energy transition its defining political banner.
Read moreEl Niño was officially confirmed on June 11, three months ahead of the expected timeline, and NOAA's projections point to a potentially severe episode, possibly the worst since 1950.
Read moreColombia's energy regulator CREG has issued Resolution 101 113 of 2026, establishing for the first time a comprehensive regulatory framework for Battery Energy Storage Systems (SAEB -- Sistemas de Almacenamiento de Energía con Baterías) connected to the national interconnected grid.
Read moreColombia's energy and gas regulator CREG put a proposed demand-reduction incentive program out for public consultation on June 23, framing it explicitly as a pre-emptive El Niño measure following IDEAM's June 11 confirmation that El Niño conditions have arrived in the equatorial Pacific and are expected to intensify through the second half of 2026.
Read more
Colombia's electricity system is running a firm energy deficit that will widen every year through 2029, according to data from XM, the national electricity market operator, reported by Valora Analitik on June 22.
Read moreThe Petro government used the week of June 17-20, just before the final presidential vote, to announce a cluster of solar energy deliveries and regulatory changes spanning five different types of project, as it pushed to consolidate its Colombia Solar and Comunidades Energéticas programs before the August 7th transition
Read moreColombia's Ministry of Mines and Energy has designated Karen Schutt -- currently an expert commissioner at CREG and a former deputy energy minister -- as technical manager of the Sectoral Committee created under Resolution 40269 of 2026 to coordinate the government's response to El Niño and oversee strategic infrastructure milestones, including the scheduled maintenance at the SPEC regasification terminal in Cartagena.
Read moreThe Caribbean electricity crisis has become one of the most urgent files awaiting Abelardo de la Espriella on August 7, and it is a substantially worse problem than the one the Petro government inherited in 2024.
Read more