The arduous path of the development in the energy sector of Colombia by 2050.
Last year, Colombia attained economic stability in spite of the Great recession (2008-USA), Spanish property bubble (2008-2014 Spain), the Brexit ( 2016-UK) and other stock market crashes during the last decade. The economic growth was 3.1% and Colombia was Latin America’s 4th largest economy and the world’s 43st largest by 2015 (Banco mundial, 2015).However, a lot of Colombians could say that food, service publics, health, transportation and the cost of real state are more expensive now. In addition, its development industry has been slowly compared to BRICS and ADV economies. The economists always consider two possible sceneries: the BAU scenario and sustainable scenario by 2050. But are applicable to Colombia these points of view? To analyze the real situation in Colombia is important to know its history and its industrial evolution. I think that the way is no easy for Colombia but personally I believe that for the next 34 years Colombia can improve its devolvement and become in an emerging market, specifically in the power sector and the development of non-conventional renewable energies (NCRE) such as Biomass power, Wind Power Generation, Ocean thermal Energy, Solar Power Generation and Geothermal Power Generation[dr2] . In the next lines, I will argue the reasons why I believe in the present potential in Colombia that will allow the economic growth. It is important to explain that this is only feasible if Colombia achieve some requirements[dr3] that I will describe below.
Step by step the private sector is begging to evaluate the possibility to change the conventional sources of energy for NCRE. Therefore, if the private sector in Colombia invest in the development of renewable energies such as sunlight, wind, geothermal heat and biomass, Colombia will be able to supply the energy need, mainly in non-interconected zones where the current situation is very depressing. The poverty, the limit access to health services, the lack of road infrastructure and lower levels of education and employs are adding to the poor or lack of energy services in rural zones of Colombia. The current situation in the country indicates that is necessary to search other alternatives to generate energy in the country because the energy demand in the country is 190 GWh and hydro-electric only supply 105 GWh, and according with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) the demand will grow approximately 80% for Latin-America in 2040. For these reason the renewable energy has become in megatrend around the world and has grown 18% since 2015 (Dinero, 2016)
Recently, the BID announced that it would give a loan of US$9.265 million to improve the private investment in renewable energy for non-interconected zones and isolated location in Colombia. Big companies like Cementos Argos, Cemex and Cartón de Colombia have chosen electricity generation and cogeneration with alternative energies (renewables and not-renewables). Additionally, there are some educational institutions, non-profit foundations and small and medium-sized enterprises that promote the use of non-conventional energies in Colombia. For example, the SENA with the alliance of the Sunset Solar which installed two photovoltaic plants, one in the center of Electricity, Electronic and Telecommunications (Ceet), in Bogotá and the other in the Regional Center in Puerto Carreño (Vichada). Other companies that have invested on renewal energy are: EnergreenCol, Funcener and Celsia.
In the fifth edition, the 2015 World Energy Trilemma Index, Colombia took up the 18 position on a classification AAB, being the second better country in Latin America after of Uruguay (Wordl Energy Council, 2015). Colombia has a legislation for the generation, interconnection, transmission, distribution and commercialization of electricity in all territory. But, the law 1715 of 2014 is the only Renewable Energy Sources law in the country. This law has as target to improve the devolvement and to make better use of non-conventional energy sources, mainly the ones that are renewable. With this law, the government aims to increase the coverage in non-interconnected zones in the country, to reduce the greenhouse gases and to guarantee electric service for vulnerable populations. To achieve this goal, Colombia is also offering tax incentives for companies that develop these type of projects. In the situation in which energy in excess is produced, the producer would sell energy to the national system.
Last year, the Mining and Energy Planning Unit of Colombia (UPME) showed a preview about tasks for evaluating the possibilities and challenges to incorporate renewable energies into the existing energy infrastructure of the country. Colombia depends on Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for development, analysis and promote of the introduction of non-conventional renewable energies (NCRE). In addition, Colombia has promised to accomplish with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). In which countries ensure the access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy to all the population.
All commitments presented above demonstrate the interest of Colombia to take the leap to a new energy revolution. However, the corruption of the political elite is an impediment on the achievement these goals. For this reason, if Colombia wants to emerge in the power sector it must toughen the laws and penalize the corruption. In the recent energy crisis, during El Niño, the Government of Colombia launched the awareness campaign “Apagar, paga” in order to prevent a power outage in the country, fortunately this never occurred. Nevertheless, el niño was not the only reason for the energy crisis.
All Colombians pay an extra fee for the price of electricity (reliability charges). These is a mechanism implemented since 2005 to encourage existing generator or new investors to increase the capacity in the wholesale energy market. In addition, this mechanism allows more stability despite the El niño or La niña phenomenon, the reservoir level or some regulation measures. Colombians should not worry about a power outage. But, due to corruption this is not reality. Some examples of corruption involve to: Electricaribe, Isagen, Enerpereira and National Hydrocarbons Agency. These cases of corruption endanger the public and social infrastructure and delay the energy devolvement. Thus, how can Colombia leave aside the corruption? It is a process very long but Colombia has the support of the National Anti-Corruption Observatory and the Office of the Inspector General (Procuradoria General de Colombia) which in the last years have penalized 11.330 cases of corruption (Corporación Excelencia en la Justicia, 2011).
Like all new technology, it is necessary to research NCRE to be able to achive the energy demand of Colombia. The country has had an increasing interest in studying the potential here for new energies sources and in evaluating how could cost to introduce these technologies in different regions of the country. All studies are used to decide which is the best option. Some studies show that while the cost of wind and photovoltaic energy has decreased in recent years, their decrease has not yet facilitated their adoption in Colombia, but several steps have been taken that could influence the future adoption of renewable energy making them more attractive as new technology.
Now, the main question is : Does Colombia have enough raw material for a sustainable development based in the use of the non-conventional energy sources? And the answer is yes, of course. It has five main sources that we have studied thoroughly during the last years: Biomass power, Wind Power Generation, Ocean thermal Energy, Solar Power Generation and Geothermal Power Generation.
Similarly, to other developing countries, Colombia has an obvious interest on biomass because biomass is the second largest renewable energy resource after Hydro. In 2009, according to UPME biomass contributed to 67% of renewable generated electricity, to 4.2% of the energy supply in the transport sector and to 3.9% of the overall primary energy supply. Across studies, five biomass categories are considered relevant to Colombia: agricultural residues, animal waste, forestry and wood industry, biofuels and urban waste. (Gonzalez Salazar, et al., 2014). While some studies evaluated the energy potential of these categories, the entire energy potential of all biomass categories has not been reported. Among the most important agricultural residues are the sugarcane bagasse and rice husk with a capacity of power production estimated at 25 MW.
Wind is other source that has a big potential to be exploited in Colombia. Between 2010 and 2014 wind power represented on average 0.1% of energy generated in Colombia. In 2014, 70.2 GWh were generated and the generation grew by 21.9% compared to the 2013. Currently the wind power generation represent 0.1% of the country’s total net generation capacity. Some regions have an optimum wind speed for energy production. For example, the average wind speed in La Guajira, Atlántico, Norte de Santander and Cesar departments is 5 m/s and in the department of Bolivar wind speed can reach 11m/s (PROCOLOMBIA, 2015). The first wind farm built in Colombia by EPM is named Jeripachi, which in Wayuunaikie the native language of Wayuu community, means “winds from north-east”. This wind farm has a total capacity of 19.5 MW and is located in the municipality of Uribia in La Guajira, but another wind farm Ipapure with 200 MW may grow nest year because of reduction in cost and increase investment in the wind farm.
Colombia exclusive location surrounded by the warm tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean make it a suitable region for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). One ideal place for an OTEC facility is the maritime area around the island of San Andres (Deivis-Morales, Montoya-Sanchez, Osorio, & Otero-Díaz, 2014) In these sea surface temperature varies only slightly on the annual and interannual timescales The thermal difference encountered from the surface to a depth of 1000 m is always around 22⁰C -24 ⁰C and cold waters are available for intake at around 450 to 750 m, within a short horizontal distance from the coast (less than 2.5 km). At these depths, the 20 ⁰C thermal gradient required for OTEC operations is achieved.
The energy demands on San Andres Island is very high (158 GWh/year) when considering its small total area. The main reason for this is the high population density, approximately 3300 habitants/km2; nearly 87,600 people (DANE 2011), it also supports close to 400,000 tourists per year. Energy is supplied entirely by one 55MW capacity power plant which uses Diesel generators that require an annual consumption of 40 million liters. The other islands in the Archipelago, Old Providence and Santa Catalina, have relatively low energy demands (7.9 GWh/year) due to their low population density (263 people/km2). Therefore, their oil consumption is also much less (2 million liters per year). It is estimated that by 2050 the electricity demand growth on the main island will reach around 250 GWh/year. OTEC is a viable alternative since the requirements of consistently warm surface temperatures and steep slopes at a short distance from shore for the extraction of cold deep water are largely met in the southwestern part of the island. In this area a feasible 10 MW open cycle OTEC power plant could produce 80 GWh/year of electricity which would cover 50% of San Andres Island’s total energy demands, additional advantages such as development of new economic activities and improvement of the marginal areas in the island. The solar power generation today is the second source of renewable energy in the world, after the wind power. The cost of production has lower rapidly during the last 4 years. Meanwhile, Colombia has high potential for solar energy and advantages because solar radiation throughout the country is uniform during the year, the average of solar irradiation is 4.5 kWh/m2/d that is a value bigger than the global average of 3.9kWh/m2/d. La Guajira have the best average availability of the country with 6.0 Kwh/m2/d. The solar energy can be use for by everybody because the technology is very accessible, easy to installing and it’s possible to installed in the houses where the cost of traditional energy is very expensive. This could allowed a small producer to sell their surplus in the open market to anybody in need of energy.
The last but not least, is the Geothermal Power Generation where Colombia have a high energy potential unexploded. According with the Colombia Geothermal Atlas exist 4 areas with a great potential: The border with Ecuador (Volcanes Chiles-Cerro Negro), in the department of Nariño (Azufral Volcano), the National Natural Park of Los Nevados and the Paipa geothermal Area (Iza in Boyacá). In Colombia there has been few studies with the geothermal energy but the total potential is estimated between 1 and 2 GW. (G. & Olade, 2013).
Due to the social, economic and environmental impact of energy use, companies and the Colombia government are under strong pressure to improve the efficiency of the national grid and finally to provide energy to the non-interconnected zones in the country. To achieve this, Colombia must overcome all obstacles present. It Is necessary that the private and public sector work together to produce and development NCRE. There are many obstacles: high initial cost, financing difficulties, imperfect completion, strong oligopolies based on conventional sources and lack of information about renewables. However, the global market is changing and probably countries with a huge energy potential will become the new strong economies in the world.
In Conclusion, the depletion of fossil fuels, the impact of natural climatic events such as El Niño/La Niña on water resources and Colombia’s commitment to comprehensively address the implications of climate change are important factors for improve the grid, develop of non-conventional renewable energies and becoming an emerging market the next 34 years. The last 10 years, in Colombia have led to investment in the development and application of alternative technologies to produce electricity, based on other available renewable energy sources. The sources with more potential are the solar and wind energy, however, other sources like biomass, geothermal and OTEC must be considered. But the most important challenge is overcoming corruption in the country and guarantee the energy to vulnerable populations.
