The risk of rationing in Colombia is not evenly distributed. The public warnings of 2026 point to two fronts with different causes: the eastern area, due to the coincidence of maintenance at major hydroelectric plants, and the Caribbean, due to grid limitations and gas supply constraints.
Eastern area: Bogotá, Meta and Guaviare
XM warned that the eastern area could face rationing starting in January. The operator's acting manager explained that the coincidence of maintenance at El Guavio and Chivor, scheduled a year in advance, would take more than 1,700 MW offline and affect the region's security generation.
The agency said it is working to reschedule at least one of the two maintenance windows. If that is not achieved, the area's energy security would not be guaranteed and rationing would be required.
Caribbean: a strained grid and dependence on imported gas
On the coast, the National Dispatch Center recommended scheduled rationing with regional coverage during preventive maintenance of the Cartagena regasification plant, the country's only entry point for imported gas, since contingencies against expected peak demand were not covered.
The National Operations Council also warned the Ministry of Mines and Energy about load shedding ordered by the CND due to the widespread depletion of the Regional Transmission System, a situation that would persist because of delays in expansion projects.
Operational reading by region
- Bogotá and the Eastern Plains: plan backup for the first half of the year, with focus on January through June.
- Caribbean: expect outages of variable duration and repeated events, not a single episode.
- West: monitor reservoir levels, with a deficit sharper than in the east.
- Multi-site operations: prioritize by process criticality, not by plant size.
The Caribbean already accounts for 95% of disconnections
The regional gap is not a projection: between January 1 and August 19, 2026, the National Dispatch Center issued 304 load-disconnection instructions nationwide, and 289 of them corresponded to the Caribbean area. That is, close to 95% of ordered outages were concentrated in a single region.
XM's Energy Bulletin No. 356, as of August 21, 2026, described a system in a critical phase with the Caribbean as the epicenter and Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Meta and Guaviare on alert for the following months, due to the combination of rising demand, delays in generation and transmission projects, and an intense El Niño phenomenon.
West: the deepest hydrological deficit
In August 2026, regional hydrological inflows showed a wide gap: Oriente above its historical average (108.18%), versus Antioquia at 50.40%, Caldas at 54.6% and Valle at 63.49%.
This explains a useful paradox for planning: the region with the best hydrology —Oriente— is the one facing the declared risk from generation maintenance, while the west carries the water deficit that is pressuring the entire system.
Turning this into decisions by site
- Bogotá, Meta and Guaviare: size backup for scheduled first-half windows and verify derating for altitude.
- Caribbean: assume repeated events of variable duration; prioritize fuel autonomy and automatic startup.
- Antioquia, Caldas and Valle: track reservoir levels and exposure to spot prices, in addition to outage risk.
- Fields and remote operations: on-site generation stops being backup and becomes the primary supply.
- Multi-site: classify each site by process criticality and by region, not by facility size.
