Colombia · Energy & Regulation
Key Facts
—The Enel Colombia fine: Colombia’s Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios, the utility regulator, fined Enel Colombia 2.847 billion Colombian pesos (approximately $769,000 at the May 22 reference rate of 3,701 pesos per United States dollar) for price distortion at the Betania hydroelectric plant, the first sanction on record under the regulator’s market-manipulation rules.
—The conduct: The detailed resolution made public this week documents that the Betania plant submitted artificially high price offers to the wholesale power market between October 17 and October 22, 2022, during a period when its reservoir was near full capacity and was actively spilling water, conditions that under Colombian regulation should have produced low offer prices because the variable cost of generation was effectively zero.
—The three documented effects: Betania was displaced from the economic-dispatch order despite holding full reservoirs; more expensive thermal plants were called on to meet demand that Betania could have served; and the resulting wholesale electricity price was artificially elevated for users across the national interconnected system.
