Ecopetrol's Wind Project FID Marks Milestone for Colombia's Renewable Development

Written by Amir Richani for IIR News (Sugar Land, Texas)

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Summary

Ecopetrol has decided to move ahead with the Windpeshi wind project in Colombia. Wind and solar power are forecasted to be the fastest-growing forms of power generation in the country in the next decade.

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Ecopetrol's Windpeshi Project

Colombia's Ecopetrol has approved the final investment decision (FID) on its 205-megawatt (MW) Windpeshi wind project in La Guajira, Colombia. The company bought the project from Enel (Rome, Italy) in 2025; the Italian company had suspended the project in 2023 due to community protests and construction delays.

Windpeshi will allow Colombia to boost wind power capacity by about fivefold.

Ecopetrol will use the energy generated by Windpeshi to power its operations, according to the company statement.

The hydrocarbon producer has, in recent years, focused on expanding its renewable power sources. The decision follows President Gustavo Petro's push for a transition to cleaner energy.

By the end of September, Ecopetrol had a total capacity of 234 MW, up from 132 MW during the same period last year.

Industrial Info is tracking 39 Ecopetrol-owned power-related projects in Colombia, worth US$3.55 billion.

Colombia's Electricity Capacity

According to Colombia's unit for mining and energy planning (UPME), the nation's total generation capacity was 21,271 MW as of December 2024. The system was dominated by hydropower capacity, which accounted for 57.5% of the total, followed by gas-fired power plants, which totaled 14.2% of the capacity. Solar power plants (utility and distributed) amounted to 8.9%.

Wind capacity for 2024 was 32 MW or 0.15% of the total.

However, based on one of the most optimistic cases of power generation expansions between 2025 and 2038, wind and solar power are the systems with the largest increases. UPME forecasts the development of 5,295 MW of new wind capacity by 2039. Meanwhile, capacity for solar power, the fastest growing energy source between this year and 2038, is expected to reach 19,185 MW (utility + distributed). This scenario depends on the expansion of transmission networks capable of handling the increase.

Under this scenario, UPME also expects the shutdown of 275 MW of coal-fired power plants in 2028, and another 112 MW removed from fuel power plants by 2027.

Based on this, by 2039, solar power would represent 42.5% of Colombia's electricity generation capacity and wind another 11.8%. Hydropower would account for 29.7% while thermal plants would account for 12.9% of the national capacity.

Industrial Info is tracking 1,408 power-generation projects across Colombia, worth US$61 billion.

Key Takeaways

• Ecopetrol decided to build the Windpeshi wind park.
• By the end of Q3, the company owned 234 MW of renewable capacity.
• Wind and solar power generation are the fastest-growing technologies in Colombia.

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