Colombia's Ministry of Mines and Energy has concluded a two-day clean energy procurement auction, awarding contracts for a combined 995 MW of solar photovoltaic capacity and nearly 100 MW of battery energy storage systems (BESS), marking a significant step forward in the country's renewable energy buildout.

Two-Day Auction Breaks Down by Round

The total solar capacity was secured across two separate auction sessions. The first day of procurement yielded approximately 270 MW of solar PV paired with the nearly 100 MW of battery storage. The second day added a substantially larger tranche, with roughly 725 MW of additional solar capacity awarded, bringing the overall solar total to 995 MW. The BESS contracts, awarded in conjunction with the first-day solar allocation, were not reported as expanding further on the second day.

Long-Term Contracts Tied to 2030 Delivery

The agreements reached in the auction are structured as 15-year contracts, with electricity supply obligations set to begin in 2030. That timeline reflects the lead time required for project development, permitting, financing, and construction at the scale being procured. The long-duration contract structure is intended to provide revenue certainty for developers while locking in clean generation capacity for Colombia's grid over an extended period.

Storage Paired With Solar From the Outset

The nearly 100 MW of BESS capacity awarded alongside the initial 270 MW of solar underscores an emerging procurement approach in Latin America: pairing dispatchable storage with variable generation resources from the contract stage rather than as an afterthought. By bundling storage with solar in the first round, the auction design signals an intent to address the intermittency characteristics of PV generation and improve the reliability of the clean energy being procured.

Scale and Context

At just under 1 GW of solar, the auction represents a notable volume for Colombia, a country whose electricity mix has historically leaned heavily on hydropower. The addition of utility-scale solar and grid-scale storage diversifies the generation portfolio and may help reduce the country's exposure to droughts and hydrological variability, which have periodically stressed the hydro-dependent system. The 15-year supply window starting in 2030 also aligns with broader regional and global decarbonization timelines that governments and utilities have been navigating.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy administered the auction, described as a Clean Energy Procurement Auction, though further details on the number of winning project developers, specific bid prices, or geographic distribution of the awarded projects were not included in available reporting at the time of publication.