Colombia to get EUR 200m from Germany to speed up energy transition

German state-owned development bank KfW will provide EUR 200 million (USD 203.8m) to support the renewable energy rollout and the energy transition in Colombia.

The financing is part of the second phase of the Programme for Sustainable and Resilient Development and will be granted in the form of a loan on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), KfW said on Friday.

In the second phase of the programme, a roadmap for Colombia's energy transition will be devised, targeting an increase in the share of non-conventional renewables, primarily solar and wind power, to 12% of the country's energy mix from currently 0.2%. Power generation in the Latin American nation is already dominated by hydropower which has a share of 66% of the electricity mix.

Another goal of the programme is to enable the connection of remote regions to the national power grid so that the local population can use climate-friendly electricity. In addition, decentralised power generation by companies with a green generation capacity of below 0.1 MW should be eased.

Commenting on the initiative, KfW executive Christiane Laibach said that Germany supports Colombia in making its policy more environmentally friendly and creating the necessary conditions to steer private and public investments to green projects.

The agreed loan follows another financial package of EUR 150 million that KfW provided to Colombia at the end of 2021 as part of the first phase of the programme.

The programme is carried out in cooperation with Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Corporacion Andina de Fomento (CAF) and Banco Centroamericano de Integracion Economica (BCIE).

(EUR 1 = USD 1.019)

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