«Colombia is an energy power, and it has to consolidate development alternatives that are clean,» say the bases of the National Development Plan (PND) presented by the government of Gustavo Petro last Monday. This is the axis by which the chapter on «Development alternatives with clean energy» begins to be governed and points out that this requires a series of social and economic changes to be able to execute it. For this, the Government proposes a just energy transition, with points such as the creation of energy communities, the promotion of generation with non-conventional renewable sources, among others.
Precisely the issue of energy communities is one of the main points that this Plan has discussed and that seeks that communities can self-generate the energy they require from non-conventional sources of renewable energy (Fncer).
This is how article 190 of the document estimates it, which additionally proposes that in the case of natural persons and indigenous, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquera communities that are constituted as an energy community, they can access resources that allow them to finance the investment to advance with these projects. .
It also points out that «the infrastructure that is developed with public resources may assign a free title to the Energy Communities.»
The articles propose that the Energy and Gas Regulation Commission (Creg) will define the terms of the provision of the service and the Superintendency of Public Services will be in charge of the inspection, control and surveillance of the provision of the service.
This point had been defined as a top priority for the Government, according to a document from the Ministry of Mines and Energy that appeared the drafts of the portfolio’s contributions to the PND.
The plan also contemplates transfers of 6% of the gross sales of excess self-generated energy that is sold to the National Interconnected System by plants with an installed capacity of more than 10 megawatts (MW).
According to the PND this «will apply exclusively to those plants that are located in areas with higher solar radiation and wind speed as established by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.» Alejandro Lucio, president of Óptima Consultores, explained that this could be understood as a disincentive for the generation of non-conventional renewable energy that previously did not pay for these transfers.
Another of the articles on the sector is 74, which indicates that the companies providing the service in any of the steps of the chain may be integrated. This means that a generating company can also transmit, distribute and commercialize energy. According to the document, this is for the purpose of «promoting efficiency in the provision of public electricity home service, encouraging the implementation of projects to expand coverage.»
Currently the provision of services is separated and was one of the determinations made after the blackout of 1992 and 1993, explains Alejandro Lucio.
Lucio added that this vertical integration had been partially allowed in the past PND in order to enable the sale of Electricaribe (like Afinia, which is part of EPM that generates).
ecopetrol as generator
The current plan seeks to add transmission to this model, which is a business of ISA and Grupo Energía Bogotá. According to Lucio, this is because Ecopetrol, being the owner of ISA, is prevented from selling energy in the market. «What he seeks is to allow this integration so that Ecopetrol is a player of the generation, as the president has said,» he said.
However, note that this may mean risks and detrimental incentives since Ecopetrol will have the transmission, so there could be a conflict of interest in the event that it also generates. According to the expert, another risk is that Ecopetrol is the main seller of gas for thermal generation, with which it not only has a large presence but also great power in the market.
“That was the old model that he used before 1994, with the Electricity Law and the Public Services Law. So it would be like giving us 30 years back,” he asserted. The PND estimates that «the exercise of generation and transmission activities in an integrated manner will only be allowed when the generation of electrical energy is carried out from non-conventional sources of renewable energy.»
He points out that the Creg will be in charge of regulating the integrated exercise in such a way that possible conflicts of interest, anti-competitive conduct, abuse of a dominant position, market concentration, possible systemic risks, among others, are considered.
The creation of a ‘holding’ was dropped
Although in the previous drafts of the National Development Plan it was estimated that a state electricity holding company would be created, the final articles presented by President Gustavo Petro do not contemplate it. This gave the president powers to «create, suppress, restructure, merge, spin off, liquidate or integrate generation, distribution and marketing companies in the electricity sector.» Likewise, this appears in a document from the Ministry of Mines and Energy on the contributions to the PND from the portfolio.
However, the final articles eliminated the proposal.
DANIELA MORALES SOLER
BRIEFCASE
