Enel Colombia to pour USD 826m into renewables in 2022-2024

Colombian power utility Enel Colombia will invest around COP 3.1 trillion (USD 826m/EUR 757m) in the renewables business as part of its COP-7-trillion investment plan for 2022-2024.

The company announced the news this week, about a month after it was formally created following a four-way merger.

Its renewables unit Enel Green Power is set to receive the largest chunk of the planned investment to be able to reach 5 GW of installed capacity across non-conventional renewables, Enel Colombia said.

The newly-minted company, created from the combined assets of four power retail, generation and distribution subsidiaries of Enel Americas SA (NYSE:ENIA), has renewable energy plants and projects in Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

With new investment, Enel Colombia expects to commission nine wind and solar projects between 2022 and 2024, general director Lucio Rubio Diaz said. Of these, six projects are currently under development or about to start construction -- one wind and three solar projects in Colombia and two solar developments in Panama.

Enel Colombia is also adopting the commitment of its Italian parent Enel SpA (BIT:ENEL) to transition towards clean energy only by 2027.

Other businesses within the Enel Colombia group will split the remaining COP 3.9 trillion. The Infrastructure and Networks unit will receive about COP 3 trillion, while the energy solutions business Enel X will get some COP 0.9 trillion to spend it on energy efficiency, distributed generation, and electric mobility projects, among others.

The spending plan will help Enel Colombia increase EBITDA by 18% to over COP 5.8 trillion, the company said.

The city of Bogota-controlled power and gas company Grupo Energia Bogota (GEB) is the second largest shareholder of Enel Colombia after Enel Americas.

(COP 1,000 = USD 0.267/EUR 0.244)

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