ISA eyeing Colombian battery storage tender

ISA InterColombia is seeking to participate in upcoming auctions for power grid infrastructure, including battery storage projects, CEO Carlos Mario Caro told BNamericas. 

Despite growing installed capacity from intermittent renewable sources such as solar power, Colombia is yet to bring online a grid-scale battery storage system.

But that could change in the near future as the government moves to ensure reliable and stable electricity supply. 

"We’ve already spoken with the [government energy planning company] UPME and with [regulator] CREG, about the regulation of storage that will come out this year," Caro said in a telephone interview. 

"They’ve made a commitment at UPME, they tell me that they won’t finish the year without having launched one or two storage tenders, which is very important for the development of the country."

ISA InterColombia has proposed a storage project to reinforce a transmission line that runs from the city of Bucaramanga to Caño Limón, near the Venezuelan border. 

Caro said the connection was an ideal candidate for storage infrastructure because of its isolation and the absence of a backup connection. 

"The line is the one that is currently out of service the most due to atmospheric discharges or other factors," Caro said. "And there’s no way to reestablish the circuit elsewhere. We’re proposing, for example, to place a battery to raise the energy needed in the area for when the line goes out of service."

He added that other locations in northern Colombia had been earmarked for future storage developments to complement a raft of new solar plants. 

"In the first quarter, InterColombia will be having several people working together to launch some storage projects because it’s one of the keys for us in this leadership role that we have within the energy transition," he said. 

The Medellín-based firm is also eyeing a tender for the installation and operation of custom-designed static synchronous compensators, also known as statcoms, in the transmission network.

According to UMPE, the bidding process will include up to five synchronous compensators to help regulate fluctuating voltage caused by renewable plants.