Colombia publishes hydrogen roadmap

The Colombian government has published the hydrogen roadmap, showing the next 30 years path for developing, generating, and using hydrogen.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy prepared the roadmap with financial backup from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The bank will also finance the development of the regulatory framework for the hydrogen roadmap.

Green hydrogen, with a potential of more than 3 GW in La Guajira alone, represents excellent economic and development opportunities for Colombia. Hydrogen can be used in applications such as refining, mobility and production of agricultural inputs.

There is great export potential for hydrogen in the medium and long term, allowing Colombia to export hydrogen to Asia, Europe, and North America, taking advantage of close access to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and its proximity to the Panama Canal.

It is assessed that through hydrogen, Colombia can develop new value chains that would boost the economy and create high-quality employment, mobilising around US$ 5.5 billion and creating about 15,000 jobs during the decade between 2020 and 2030.

The roadmap also guides the country in its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 51% by 2030 and its goal of being carbon-neutral by 2050, cutting CO2 between 2.5 and 3 million tonnes over the next decade.

The Hydrogen Roadmap of Colombia and the approval of Law 2099 of 2021 (the energy transition law, with incentives for non-conventional renewable energy projects including blue and green hydrogen) will help establish the foundations for a reliable regulatory framework to achieve its emission reduction targets.

Colombia has been advancing in the energy transition for the last three years. It has a great potential for renewable energy and hydrogen. The development of the hydrogen economy will help in energy transition and bring economic benefits in the form of investment and job creation.

In August 2018, Colombia had one wind and one solar project, which represented just 28 MW of installed capacity, less than 0.2% of the country’s electricity matrix. Currently, the country has 15 large-scale solar farms, seven self-generation projects and over 1,500 small and medium-scale self-generation photovoltaic solar projects that provide a total of 322 MW of capacity.