Power sector in 2030

Colombia already benefits from a large proportion of renewables in its power sector, with hydropower supplying 71% of power produced in 2020.¹⁶ Colombia’s updated NDC includes a target of reaching 1500 MW of installed non-hydro renewable capacity by 2022, equivalent to roughly 9% of the electricity supply.^18,19

However, our analysis show that Colombia would need to reach at least 88% renewable energy capacity in the power generation mix by 2030 and nearly 100% renewable power by 2050 to decarbonise in line with the 1.5°C temperature limit.

Furthermore, coal, which plays currently a minor role in the power mix, would need to be phased out of the power sector pretty much immediately, and gas by 2027-2032. This indicates a need for greater ambition on the upscaling of renewable power in Colombia by 2022 and beyond.

Towards a fully decarbonised power sector

The carbon intensity of Colombia’s power sector will need to be reduced from 130 gCO₂/kWh in 2017 in order to be fully decarbonised by latest 2034, which appears to be feasible for a country already benefitting from around 80% renewable energy in its power mix.²²

Some models show the power sector in Colombia reaching zero CO₂ emissions by 2025. This follows a scenario relying primarily on the aggressive and exclusive upscaling of renewable of power in Colombia without the use of negative emissions technologies.

Alternatively, scenarios using varying combinations of renewable power and negative emissions would shift the year of zero CO₂ power emissions forward. Given the uncertainties associated with the efficacy of many negative emissions technologies and the continued damage resulting from climate variability under slower emissions cuts, implementing renewable power as quickly and broadly as in the power sector offers a better opportunity to limit warming to 1.5°C.

¹ Statista Research Department. Distribution of exports in Colombia in 2019, by sectors. Statista (2021).

² Gobierno de Colombia- IDEAM. Segundo Reporte Bienal de Actualización- Informed de Inventario Nacional de GEI de Colombia. 180 (2019).

³ Editor. Colombian coal exports. The Coal Hub (2021).

⁴ U.S. Energy Information Administration. Colombia. U.S. Energy Information Administration (2019).

⁵ Gobierno de Colombia. Contribución Prevista Determinada a Nivel Nacional de la República de Colombia. (2020).

⁶ International Energy Agency (IEA). Colombia Country Profile: Total energy supply (TES) by source, 1990-2018. (2018)..

⁷ IRENA. Scaling Up Renewable Energy Investment in Colombia. (2020).

⁸ Groot, K. de, Vega, C. B.- & Juarez-Lucas, A. Turning the Tide: Improving Water Security for Recovery and Sustainable Growth in Colombia. World Bank 36 (2020).

⁹ Climate Action Tracker. Climate Target Update Tracker: Colombia. Climate Action Tracker (2021).

¹⁰ Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible Colombia. ‘Colombia Carbono Neutral’, una estrategia para combatir el cambio climático. Noticias: Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarollo (Colombia) (2021).

¹¹ MinEnergía Colombia. Antes de 2050 el sector eléctrico colombiano será carbono neutral. (2020).

¹² MinMinas & Gobierno de Colombia. Plan Integral de Gestión del Cambio Climático / Sector Minero Energético. (2018).

¹³ Gobierno de Colombia- MinAmbiente. Estrategia Nacional de Movilidad Eléctrica. (2019).

¹⁴ Ministerio de Vivienda Colombia. Resolución 0549 del 10 Julio de 2015. 1–10 (2015).

¹⁵ Ministerio de Vivienda Colombia. PLAN INTEGRAL DE GESTIÓN DEL CAMBIO CLIMÁTICO SECTORIAL: Sectora de Vivienda, Ciudad y Territorio. (2020).

¹⁶ Climate Transparency. CLIMATE TRANSPARENCY REPORT: COLOMBIA’S CLIMATE ACTION AND RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 CRISIS. (2020).

¹⁷ NDC Partnership. Colombia and Panama Eye Carbon Neutrality by 2050.

¹⁸ Sánchez Molina, P. Colombia ratifica su intención de alcanzar 1.500 MW renovables instalados en 2022. PV Magazine Latin America (2019)..

¹⁹ Volcovici, V. Latin America pledges 70% renewable energy, surpassing EU: Colombia minister. Reuters (2019).

²⁰ While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for developed countries, they underestimate the feasible space for such countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models – and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches.

²¹ The re-expressed emissions excluding LULUCF below selected baseline used the 2015 emissions from PRIMAP (161 MtCO₂e), also shown in the figures, for its calculation. When possible, the needed emissions reduction be updated to be re-expressed relative to the latest historical year for the country. A range was used in the calculation of the unconditional NDC excluding LULUCF to reflect different possibilities depending on the extent to which LULUCF is used in mitigation actions.

²² In some of the analysed pathways, the energy sector assumes already a certain amount of carbon dioxide removal technologies, in this case bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS).