BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombian power company Celsia will invest some 3.4 trillion pesos ($947 million) this year as it focuses on expanding its solar energy capacity, as well as in gas generation, among other projects, company directors said on Wednesday.
In February, Celsia reported its 2020 net profit fell 40% to 354.5 billion pesos ($98.7 million), falling on lower demand due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve got investments on almost all fronts, in non-conventional renewable energy, in solar, we will probably be deploying something like 1 trillion pesos,” Celsia Chief Finance Officer Esteban Piedrahita told journalists in a conference call following a shareholders meeting
The company, which is a subsidiary of industrial conglomerate Grupo Argos, chose to delay investments of some 300 billion pesos last year due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have a very aggressive, very ambitious project to expand our solar presence, we want to have more than 650 megawatts under construction by the end of the year, which is 20 times greater than what we have today,” said Celsia Chief Executive Ricardo Sierra. “The second thing is to continue consolidating the wind projects in La Guajira (province).”
For now, Celsia does not have plans for new bond or share placings, Sierra said.
“This year is very simple (…) we haven’t thought about issuing any shares,” he said.
($1 = 3,589.82 pesos)
(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
