Photovoltaic energy in Colombia: Current status, inventory, policies and future prospects

Abstract

Along with the development of renewable energies in the world and the initiatives for alternative energy implementation in Colombia, it is important to make a national revision regarding the implementation and use of solar photovoltaic energy in Non-Interconnected Zones (ZNI for its abbreviation in Spanish) and the National Interconnected System (SIN for its abbreviation in Spanish). The objective of this article is to identify the development that it has had and its future panorama as far as the solar photovoltaic energy is concerned. The study presents the projects that have been executed and the ones in execution during the last decade, and the capacity that has been installed up to the present day in both SIN and ZNI (Photovoltaic Inventory). On the other hand, the document describes its social and political development at a national level, as well as legal aspects of the advantages and disadvantages of the recent Law 1715 signed in 2014. This law aims to promote the development and use of unconventional sources of energy, integrating them into the national energy system, allowing a promising future for these alternative technologies such as electricity generation from photovoltaic solar energy. Finally, the article shows the different opportunities in the ZNIs where the radiation potential reaches up to 6 kW h/m2 day and the projects do not exceed the 2.25 MW of installed capacity in Colombia, contrasted with the national average that is around 4.5 kW h/m2 day, surpassing the world average of 3.9 kW h/m2 day. Likewise, it allows seeing the opportunities that the new law offers for the development of generation projects in the SIN at a mega and gigascale, and of smaller projects that enable self-consumption and sales to the network, as well as distributed generation projects and hybrid power generation projects.