Especial Cartagena y Bolívar
This Cartagena-based company leads solar energy expansion in the Caribbean: demands clear rules to grow
EGAL went from building the first solar park connected to the national grid to becoming the largest renewable energy developer in the Caribbean among all registered companies in the region. Its bets will be key to facing phenomena like El Niño.
Semana Editorial Staff | June 2, 2026, 11:00 a.m.
Today, EGAL has more than ten generation projects connected to the grid, mainly concentrated in Bolívar and Atlántico. Photo: EGAL - API
In 2015, when a group of entrepreneurs from Cartagena decided to bet on solar energy in Colombia, the sector barely existed on paper. There were no precedents or consolidated supplier network, and most actors in the electricity system viewed the initiative with skepticism. Then, EGAL chose a 6.5-hectare lot in the village of Bayunca, north of Cartagena, and built what would become the first solar park connected to the national grid in the country.
"That was a very important milestone for us," said Iván Martínez, general manager of EGAL. The park, inaugurated during the government of Iván Duque and with broad national coverage, was the demonstration that solar energy could be an industrial reality in Colombia.
Since that first project, EGAL has grown steadily. Today it has more than ten generation projects connected to the grid, mainly concentrated in the department of Bolívar — with emphasis on Cartagena — and in the department of Atlántico, specifically in the Malambo area. Added to this are dozens of self-generation projects for private companies.
A decade of growth
The leap from Bayunca 1 to EGAL's current projects illustrates the transformation of the sector. While the first park occupied 6.5 hectares with a capacity of 3.6 MW, today the company develops projects on lots of 120 to 130 hectares, with capacities of 65 and 70 MW.
In parallel to the large parks, EGAL also builds facilities for companies seeking to generate their own energy without depending on the grid. "These are smaller projects that have their advantages, since we sell the energy at a better price because the grid operator, transmission, and distribution are not involved," Martínez explained.
Likewise, it is worth noting the role EGAL played in consolidating Law 2099 of 2021, which established a fundamental and modernized regulatory framework for the energy transition in the country.
The ideal territory
Between projects in operation and advanced development, EGAL's total capacity is around 200 MW. "That is the same amount of energy that could be consumed by 15 or 20 percent of the population in Cartagena," Martínez said, and recalled that "per capita consumption in the Caribbean Coast exceeds the national average for climatic reasons."
EGAL's commitment transforms the territories. Photo: EGAL - API
This figure has positioned the company as the largest-scale solar energy company registered on the Caribbean coast, as the firms with the highest installed capacity in the country have their corporate domicile in other cities. "The coastal company that generates the most solar energy is us," the manager emphasized, comparing it with other companies registered in the Chambers of Commerce of the Caribbean and headquartered in the region.
Martínez was emphatic that geography is not a minor detail; it is the central argument for concentrating solar energy efforts in the north of the country. The same photovoltaic panel installed in La Guajira or Bolívar can generate more energy than the same panel placed in other regions such as Bogotá or Boyacá.
"The panel costs you the same whether you put it in Bogotá or in La Guajira, **but that same panel in La Guajira will generate perhaps 30 or 40 percent more energy. Therefore, you can pay for that panel faster," Martínez commented.
That is why his call to municipalities and companies that still doubt is direct: "Solar energy is the fastest-growing in the world. It is a very good business for everyone," he warned.
Clear rules of the game
Despite the growth outlook, the country has only a fraction of the solar energy it could have. According to Martínez, the main cause is "the regulatory instability around the connection points to the grid, which are the indispensable requirement for a park to deliver its energy to the system," he said.
The manager stated that the problem lies in "a dispute of competences that for years pitted the grid operator against the UPME (Mining and Energy Planning Unit)." The rules changed several times, and projects that advanced under one regulation were trapped when it changed.
"What has happened is that the grid operator tells you 'yes' and then 'no.' It assigns us a project according to the current regulation and suddenly says: 'To improve things, we are going to change the procedures, and what happened before does not count, clean slate,'" Martínez denounced.
For those left in that limbo, restarting the connection process means an additional three to four years. "If when I started the process I knew that the one who would answer me was the UPME, I wouldn't have started. I did it because there were rules, a path to follow, and I had it clear. Knowing this, I made my investments. But you cannot change the rules of the game halfway through," the manager declared.
That uncertainty, according to Martínez, is the main reason why European investors financing EGAL's projects carefully review country risk. Despite this, his long-term reading does not change: "We see it as excellent. There is incredible potential here, especially on the Caribbean coast, and we are making very important investments because we believe that very good things are coming in the future."
What will happen with El Niño?
Martínez assured that solar radiation will skyrocket. "When you have no rain, the sky clears incredibly and solar radiation increases a lot," he explained, highlighting that solar parks "could reach their maximum generation precisely when hydropower is at its lowest point."
The complementarity between the two sources is, for Martínez, the strongest argument in favor of solar expansion. "If we had a lot of solar energy, we could turn off the water reserves during the day, generate with the sun, and at night generate with water and take care of that resource we have in the reservoirs," he noted. In his view, an energy system with greater solar participation would be a more resilient system against the effects of climate change.
EGAL has developed a key environmental profile in its parks. The operation produces no gas emissions, solid waste, liquids, or noise. The projects are mostly installed on land where cereals were previously cultivated or livestock grazed, without the need to clear forests or cut down large numbers of trees. "You can have a solar park next to a children's park without any problem. We do not emit any type of electromagnetic pollution of any kind," he concluded.
Thus, the carbon footprint of the panel manufacturing process is also progressively reduced: the large production plants cover their roofs and grounds with their own panels, and increasingly consume clean energy in their production.
Content prepared with the support of EGAL.
