In a series of letters dated last July 16, the Ministry of Mines and Energy, headed by Edwin Palma, has just alerted about possible energy risks in the country amid the El Niño Phenomenon.
Palma’s alerts are related to maintenance that will be carried out at the El Guavio and Chivor hydroelectric plants during the drought season.
Energy security
The letters from Minister Palma are addressed to the National Electric Sector Operation Council, XM, the Energy and Gas Regulation Commission (Creg); to Enel, operator of the El Guavio hydroelectric plant and AES Colombia, operator of Chivor.
The Government’s concern regarding the scheduled maintenance at the two hydroelectric plants is that they could coincide with a period of the El Niño Phenomenon and affect the reliability of the electrical system.
In the letter sent by Minister Palma to the director of the Energy and Gas Regulation Commission, Antonio Jiménez Rivera, exclusively obtained by EL TIEMPO, potential risks and safety requirements that would arise as a result of interventions at the Chivor and Guavio hydroelectric plants are warned about.
According to the document, interventions at the Chivor plant would take place from October 16 to June 10, 2027, from September 10 of the same year to May 4, 2028, and from September 1, 2028, to June 10, 2029. For this, it is stated that 500 megawatts will need to be unavailable.
Rescheduling?
And at the Guavio plant, it is said that interventions will be carried out from January 1 of the coming year to April 30, 2027, from January 1, 2028, to April 30 of the same year, and from January 1, 2029, to April 30, 2029. For these processes, the letter states that the reservoir will reach a maximum of 17 percent of the plant’s useful volume.
Therefore, Minister Palma warns that if these interventions are done simultaneously, they could generate an unavailability of 1,750 MW in the system and also coincide with the most critical months of the El Niño Phenomenon during the next summer.
“Consequently, the results of simulations by the National Dispatch Center (CND) indicate that up to 10 percent of the demand in the eastern area would be affected under the most critical scenario evaluated and a power deficit at the systemic level could occur,” the letter obtained by EL TIEMPO reads.
And they highlight that due to the duration and impact of these interventions, the question arises as to whether they can indeed be classified as maintenance or if they are capacity expansions, uprating, or plant modernization that could be subject to rescheduling without risk to any agent or person involved.
Therefore, the Ministry of Mines requested to know the actions that, under the current regulatory framework, the National Government can take to order the rescheduling of interventions to minimize the risks of unmet demand, the signing of backup contracts established to cover temporary energy shortages, and the refund to users of payments made for Reliability Charge for Firm Energy Obligations not fulfilled by the plant owners.
The letter to XM
In another document sent by Palma to Juan Carlos Morales, who will assume the acting management of XM – which administers the Wholesale Energy Market -, it is stated that analyses carried out by the National Dispatch Center deduce that with the maintenance programs the safety and reliability margins of the National Interconnected System during the next summer and presumably during the three years in which the interventions are scheduled are not preserved.
Therefore, they requested to inform the Ministry of Mines about the results and actions carried out by the National Dispatch Center with the agents who will carry out the maintenance in order for them to be rescheduled.
For their part, to Francesco Bertoli, general manager of Enel, and Federico Echavarría, manager of AES Colombia, the operators of the two hydroelectric plants, Minister Palma asked them to send the technical characteristics and schedules of the intervention at the Guavio and Chivor plants and the backup contracts used by the company.
It is expected that Palma’s requests will be answered in the coming days, which will be key to informing the incoming government about this issue.
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