Energy Communities Workshop in Colombia

Dr. Stephanie Pincetl, director of the CCSC, and Sebastián Solarte-Caicedo, Ph.D. student in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, participated in the Energy Communities Workshop Series, an event organized by the Government of Colombia, together with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Energy Agency (USEA) in March 2023. The purpose of the series is to bring together Colombian and international stakeholders to discuss experiences around planning, regulating, and implementing energy communities and identify lessons learned, causes of success or failure, and planned changes moving forward. By bringing together these experts, the Government of Colombia expects to identify a series of best practices that would allow them to foster energy communities as a way of promoting access to sufficient levels of electricity while fostering local well-being, especially in rural and indigenous communities.

Dr. Pincetl and Mr. Solarte-Caicedo introduced the regulatory framework of the United States and California, discussed the current state of California’s Rule 21, Net Energy Metering, and Community Choice Aggregators frameworks. They also presented the Basset and Avocado Heights Advanced Energy Community (BAAEC) as a case study to illustrate the complexities of developing these projects in California.