Colombia Renewable Energy Auction Deferred

• Colombia's national mining and energy planning unit UPME has pushed back the country's first renewable energy auction
• In a circular, the UPME it announced the postponement of publishing the final bidding rules for the auction
• It plans to provide updated schedule in another circular, but did not specify when the next circular be issued, or why it needed to postpone the auction in the first place

Colombia won't be going ahead with the renewable energy auction planned in January 2019. The South American country's mining and energy planning unit UPME has announced through a circular that it is postponing the auction, but did not specify the reasons for this step. It said it is postponing the final bidding rules for what is planned to be the country's first renewable energy auction.

It did say that an updated schedule of the auction will be shared later.

The Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy earlier announced auctions to be held in May 2018 that never saw the light of the day, and later it revised the auction process deadline for January 2, 2019 to contract 3,443 GWh of clean energy annually (see Colombia Announces First RE Auction).

The auction details released by UPME, according to international law firm White & Case LLP, allow both brownfield and greenfield projects to participate in the auction, with greenfield projects to start operations on or before December 1, 2022. The original schedule fixed January 14, 2019 as the date for PPAs to be signed with the winners. However, the UPME's circular makes it clear the January 2, 2019 deadline is not valid anymore.