Colombia's EPM starts commercial operation of 83-MW solar farm

Colombian utility Empresas Publicas de Medellin (EPM) announced on Friday that its 83-MW Tepuy solar farm in the central-west part of Colombia had been connected to the national grid and reached commercial operation.

The Tepuy project, located in the municipality of La Dorada, department of Caldas, required around COP 397 billion (USD 96.1m/EUR 89.6m) of investments, partially financed through the French Development Agency (AFD), EPM said.

The plant consists of over 199,500 bifacial photovoltaic panels installed on 2,290 solar trackers. The panels were connected to 320 inverters. The useful life of the Tepuy facility is estimated at 35 years.

“Tepuy is our first large-scale photovoltaic solar park,” said John Maya Salazar, general manager of EPM. “[W]e are increasing the power generation capacity in Colombia and joining the efforts of the electricity sector to reduce the vulnerabilities of the system against climate variability phenomena, such as the one the country has just faced, and ensure the reliability and continuity of service in the coming years".

The Tepuy development was one of 30 solar projects to secure firm energy obligations in Colombia’s reliability charge auction in February 2024, EPM said at the time. Before that, Tepuy was selected in the country's renewable energy auction in October 2021.

(COP 1,000 = USD 0.242/EUR 0.226)

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