Colombia's 7.4 Earthquake Leaves 18% of Demand Unserved; Solar Plants Undamaged

The magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck Colombia on August 10 left approximately 18% of national electricity demand unserved, with no physical damage reported at utility-scale solar generation facilities, according to pv magazine. Bloomberg Línea put the preliminary reduction at 18% of unserved demand in Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Quindío, Caldas, and Risaralda.

The earthquake's epicenter was in San José del Palmar, in the department of Chocó, at a depth of 103 kilometers. It was the strongest earthquake recorded in Colombia this century, with more than 200 deaths reported, according to Colombia's Geological Survey (SGC). Outages were concentrated in assets belonging to regional transmission systems (STR) and local distribution systems (SDL), not in generation plants, according to system operator XM. By the close of Monday, demand served by the National Interconnected System (SIN) had recovered to approximately 99% of pre-earthquake levels.

Celsia, which operates 25 solar parks with more than 480 MW of installed capacity, confirmed that its plants in Valle del Cauca and Tolima, two of the most affected departments, suffered no damage to modules, trackers, or inverters. The company reported interruptions in transmission and distribution assets and some substations, but its generation infrastructure and its Nova control center continued operating normally. pv magazine highlights the distinction between a photovoltaic plant's physical integrity and grid availability: a park can remain fully intact yet fail to deliver energy if the substations or lines at its point of interconnection are out of service. By Tuesday, the Eje Cafetero and Chocó still had approximately 20% of demand unserved, and Valle del Cauca, 18.5%.

XM is publishing department-by-department recovery reports and, as of Tuesday, the Eje Cafetero and Chocó still had approximately 20% of demand unserved. The region will be watching the restoration of dispatch from Celsia's solar parks as their points of interconnection are re-established, a direct data point for the grid resilience debate across Latin America.

This article was drafted with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.