Ecopetrol, a Colombian energy company, has teamed with Total Eren to build a solar photovoltaic farm in Colombia with a capacity of nearly 100 MWp. The Rubiales solar project will be developed in the municipality of Puerto Gaitan in Colombia’s Meta department. The solar farm will be developed, financed, built, and operated by Total EREN. The company will own a 51 per cent stake in the Rubiales project, with Ecopetrol holding the remaining 49 per cent.
With its 180,000 monocrystalline bifacial panels, the Rubiales solar farm will be able to supply 150,000 people with clean energy per day. The solar facility is anticipated to go online in the first quarter of 2024, with construction at the site set to start in the first quarter of 2023. Once it is operational, Ecopetrol will purchase the clean energy it produces from the facility through a 17-year power purchase agreement (PPA). The Rubiales project aims to aid Ecopetrol Group’s efforts to ramp up Colombia’s energy transition as well as its decarbonisation strategy.
In December 2022, Total Eren and Gransolar announced the joint design, development, financing, construction, and operation of a microgrid project in the Galápagos Islands. The E-Quator Energy project would include a 14.8 MWp solar photovoltaic plant as well as a 40.9 MWh energy storage system. The project, which is located in the UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site, Galápagos Islands, would allow for an increase in the share of renewables in local electricity consumption from 15 per cent to up to 70 per cent.
