The National Government and Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) reached an agreement for the Jepírachi wind park it operates as part of a popular public alliance with the Wayuu community in La Guajira.
This was announced by the Minister of Mines and Energy, Irene Vélezthe mayor of Medellín and the president of the board of directors of EPM, Daniel Quintero, and the general manager (e) of the company, Jhonatan Villada.
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Jepírachi was the first wind farm to be built in Colombia. It has been in operation since April 2004 and has 15 wind turbines that provide an installed capacity of 19.5 megawatts.
This would be the first project that would have the quality of having community participation after a repowering of the infrastructure and a regulatory adjustment.
The mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero and the Minister of Mines and Energy, Irene Vélez.
This alliance implies a training process so that the community can appropriate this wind farm. Therefore, they would also participate in maintenance and other activities related to this initiative.
“We are going to have technical tables between Fenoge, the Vice Ministry of Energy and EPM to understand what are the schemes that are needed for the operation (of Jepírachi),” explained Minister Irene Vélez.
Mauricio Duenas Castañeda. EFE
These actions will be framed in the context of the decree of social, economic and ecological emergency of la guajiradecreed by President Gustavo Petro a few days ago.
With this initiative, it seeks to implement a popular public scheme in that region, which responds to the initiative of the National Government to involve the communities in the property of the electric power projects of this region.
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Minister Irene Vélez also announced an investment of 45,000 million pesos to complement the 30,000 million pesos provided by EPM for the development of energy communities in the areas of influence of EPM and Afinia.
“This way EPM and the Government added very important resources to the country this year, in a complementary effort to consolidate the energy communities in the regions where EPM is working,” the official highlighted.
