Andrea Jaramillo of Bloomberg reports that Colombia Hydropower, which provides 70% of energy, is vulnerable to droughts. The dry conditions have Colombia leaning on fossil fuels once again to generate 40% of the country’s electricity. Jaramillo writes:
Dry weather is forcing Colombia, which has one of the world’s most aggressive climate plans, to burn more fossil fuel.
Colombia’s electrical system is vulnerable to drought because roughly two-thirds of the nation’s power comes from hydro. But after months of parched conditions, the Andean nation’s energy regulator last month called upon fossil fuel-powered plants to boost output in an effort to conserve shrinking water reservoirs. […]
Arid weather has been so severe that Bogotá has been rationing water since April. In neighboring Ecuador, which is also highly dependent on hydropower, daily blackouts are crippling the economy. […]
Although Colombia boasts one of the world’s cleanest grids, so-called thermal plants that burn fuels such as gas or coal are a key part of the network because they are invulnerable to most weather threats, said Daisy Cerquera, a former member of the Regulatory Commission of Energy and Gas, or CREG.
“Thermal generation, which doesn’t depend on whether it rains or not, provides the basis” for reliability in the country’s grid, she said. “Without the thermal plans, we wouldn’t have been able to make it” without blackouts.
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