Latin American conglomerate Enel Americas SA (BCS:ENELAM) said on Monday that it will invest USD 5 billion (EUR 4.84bn) in its electricity business in the region under the 2023-2025 strategic plan, and direct most its investments to Colombia and Brazil.
The company will exit from Peru and Argentina in 2023, just as its Italian parent Enel SpA (BIT:ENEL) announced a week ago, in an effort to “focus on countries that are more advanced in the energy transition and electrification”. This will leave Enel Americas in charge of overseeing operations in Brazil and Colombia, and through Enel Colombia, Guatemala, Panama and Costa Rica.
Despite being the target of disposal, the business in Peru will still receive investments from Enel Americas for the first nine months of 2023. The company will also continue investing in its power distribution operations in the Brazilian state of Ceara before selling those as well next year.
During the planning period, Enel Americas will invest around USD 2.5 billion in grid modernisation and digitalisation, allocating 66% of that amount to Brazilian operations, 29% to Colombia and 5% to Peru.
The company expects the investment effort in this segment will help it increase the number of grid customers to 16 million in 2025, up by 6% compared to 2022 estimates. Power distribution is projected to rise by 6% between 2022 and 2025 to 72.8 TWh.
Investments in the generation business will total USD 2.1 billion, with renewables accounting for 98% of that amount and Colombia alone receiving 40%.
Enel Americas now commands around 16 GW of total installed capacity, 71% of that renewable -- wind, solar and hydropower. Once it realises the divestment and investment plan, the group is expected to have 12.6 GW of installed capacity, but 98% of it will come from renewables as the share of thermal generation in the portfolio shrinks to 2%.
In the presentation of the strategic plan, Enel Americas said that it has around 2.4 GW of wind and solar projects in execution at present. These projects are located in Brazil, Colombia and Panama.
Finally, the company's retail and specialised energy services offering will receive an investment of around USD 0.23 billion to USD 0.24 billion, divided exclusively between Brazil and Colombia.
(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.968)
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Bogota skyscrapers. Image by Enel Group in Colombia (www.enel.com.co)
