Clean Energy Services in Colombia
Tetra Tech implemented the Colombia Clean Energy Project (CCEP), a five-year program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), to help Colombia advance energy efficiency practices and increase use of off-grid renewable energy sources. CCEP was USAID/Colombia’s flagship clean energy activity that worked to increase access to renewable energy sources and energy-efficient practices through private sector partnerships.
Colombia has ambitious goals in developing clean energy initiatives and achieving a low-carbon trajectory. These goals include producing 30 percent of off-grid power through renewable energy sources by 2020, decreasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and increasing investment in energy efficiency. To help reach these energy and environmental goals, Tetra Tech worked with international development partners, the Government of Colombia, and the private sector to provide expertise in project development, financing and investment promotion, policy development, and grant management. Tetra Tech helped Colombia advance towards its goals by developing and implementing more than 200 clean energy projects and activities in urban and rural communities throughout the country.
As part of CCEP, Tetra Tech installed more than 100 renewable energy systems in 93 communities, including solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems to support local production and commercialization value chains (e.g., fishing cooperatives and coffee farms) and provided solar PV systems for rural schools and health and other social infrastructure. CCEP also designed five micro hydropower plants (5-150 kilowatt) and completed construction of four of the five micro-hydro plants in off-grid areas. These projects benefited more than 23,000 Colombians in remote, off-grid communities.
Tetra Tech also worked directly with more than 150 companies and private sector organizations to develop energy efficiency and renewable energy investment projects in factories and commercial establishments. By the end of the program, 45 companies had invested or financially closed more than $11 million of projects with projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions of more than 1.2 tons of CO2 over the projects’ life cycles.
Tetra Tech also managed an incentive fund to encourage investment in community-scale renewables and energy efficiency to promote access to modern energy systems for underserved populations, household- and community-scale renewables, and an enterprise-based approach for these technologies.
Tetra Tech signed a major agreement to create and implement a clean energy Project Preparation Facility (PPF) to foster project design and increase investment in energy-efficient technologies. The facility co-financed up to 50 percent of the cost of basic and detailed engineering designs with companies and energy service companies (ESCOS), complemented engineering designs with detailed financial modeling, and established communication channels with company owners or top management to help facilitate investment decisions. During the PPF’s two-year operation under CCEP, Unidad de Planeacion Minero Energetica (UPME), CCEP, and the private sector spent approximately USD$1 million to structure financing for 17 clean energy projects totaling more than USD$143.5 million in the food and beverage, agroindustry, metallurgy, paper and pulp, chemical, forestry, and power generation sectors.
View these USAID videos to learn more about CCEP’s positive impacts for communities: