Led by the president, Ivan Duque, the National Government yesterday inaugurated the La Sierpe solar power plant, which was built and developed by the company Atlántica Sustainable Infrastructure. The new photovoltaic complex, located in the municipality of San Benito Abad, in Sucre, has an installed capacity of 19.9 megawatts (MW) and is projected to generate electricity for a population of about 28,500 households.

Atlántica’s Sustainable Infrastructure Manager in Colombia, Gracia Candau Sánchez, explained to LR that, in addition to this recently inaugurated solar park, they will undertake two more in the capital city of Sucre, Sincelejo, which will have a co-installed capacity of 30 MW and will be operational by 2023. .

“We started construction of two other parks in Sincelejo, with a capacity of 30 MW, one 10 MW and another 20 MW, and going forward we have investment plans for the whole country up to 500 MW, but that is something that is being evaluated,” Sanchez said.

Regarding the inaugurated project, the directive mentions that the main novelty of the plant is that it has bifacial panels and a solar tracker, which allows it not only to follow the orientation of the sun, but also to capture the radiation remaining on the ground. It is the first factory with this technology to be connected to the National Interconnection System (SIN).

With the inauguration of La Sierpe, Colombia has 17 photovoltaic projects in operation, representing an installed capacity of 674.49 MW of the total matrix of renewable energy generation to date.

During the event, Duque highlighted that with this complex “only in installed solar energy, right now, the country has 25 times more capacity in renewable energy than in 2018.”

As such, the project, which generated nearly 200 jobs (75% of the local workforce) during its construction, has 65,520 bifacial solar panels, which allow sunlight to be captured on both sides.
In turn, the Minister of Mines and Energy Diego Mesa assured that the new power plants already operating in the system are a testament to private investment, both national and foreign.

“Atlántica is a company with a presence in eight countries, from the UK. In addition to Atlántica, the world’s largest energy conglomerates have arrived in Colombia, such as Edpr, EDF, Canadian Solar, among others,” said the head of the energy portfolio, adding that these groups had committed more than $10 billion in investments.

And that is, from the renewable energy auction, 2,800 MW of installed capacity has been awarded.

Therefore, in the next two years, the country is preparing 16 new solar projects that will be connected to SIN, which will add to the installed capacity of 1,300 MW with solar energy. Most of them will be concentrated in departments like Cesar, Córdoba and Tolima.

Meanwhile, the Governor of Sucre, Héctor Olimpo Espinosa, described the solar park as “the cherry on the cake”, as it represents the realization of a $2.5 billion social and productive investment for the department.

“We have confirmed the construction of two solar power plants in Sucre with Atlántica. Of course we will see the current investment, which is $75,000 million, multiplied by two”, concluded Mesa.