Colombia’s public-service sector entered 2025 under growing pressure, but in recent weeks Andesco — the association representing utilities across the country — raised the alarm with rare intensity. During the presentation of its annual balance, the organization’s president, Camilo Sanchez Ortega, described a scenario he called a “technical blackout,” a term that captures a structural failure in the nation’s ability to meet rising energy and gas demand.
This warning is not about power lines collapsing or a sudden nationwide outage. A technical blackout refers to something deeper, a moment in which the system can no longer deliver what homes, businesses, and local governments require because supply and infrastructure fall short.
According to Sanchez, Colombia is moving dangerously close to that threshold. He noted that demand for new industrial and municipal projects is rising faster than the country’s capacity to generate and transport energy, especially natural gas, the area he described as “the most critical service right now.”
In his words, “20% of the country’s gas is missing,” a shortfall that inevitably pushes consumer tariffs upward and reduces the system’s ability to react to peaks in demand. The shortage is not the result of a single event but a chain of long-neglected structural issues: slowing domestic gas production, delayed infrastructure expansions, and an accelerating dependence on imported fuel. These imported volumes, while essential to avoid an immediate collapse, come at significantly higher costs, which eventually reach Colombian households through rising service bills.
Adding to the strain is a fiscal problem that Andesco has repeated for months. Subsidies owed by the national government have accumulated to levels that compromise utilities’ cash flow, limiting what companies can invest in maintenance, expansion, and modernization. For many firms, the combination of high import prices and delayed subsidies has become a precarious tightrope.
Short-term fixes are buying time but not solving the crisis
To prevent the worst outcomes, the government released emergency funding earlier in the year to partially pay down the debt in electricity and gas subsidies. The money helped utilities regain some liquidity and reduce the risk of a “financial blackout,” which would occur if companies ran out of operating capital entirely.
But even Andesco acknowledges these disbursements do not resolve the underlying weakness. Emergency payments keep the system from stalling, but they do not expand gas reserves, build pipelines, restore regulatory certainty, or accelerate renewable-energy deployment. They are bandages, necessary, but temporary.
Likewise, importing liquefied natural gas has become the default response whenever domestic supply falls short. Andesco has emphasized that these imports are allowed and strictly regulated, but they are also costly and expose Colombia to volatile global markets. Every ship that arrives keeps the lights on yet deepens dependency and inflates tariff pressure.
The result is a sector that is functioning, but strained, and one that cannot sustain itself without longer-term solutions: clearer regulation, infrastructure investment, and a reliable plan to rebuild the country’s energy reserves.
Inside Andesco’s 2025 balance: progress on some fronts, turbulence on others
Despite the warnings, Andesco’s annual review did highlight important advances. The organization noted improvements in water and sanitation projects, progress in digital-connectivity infrastructure, and steps toward more sustainable waste-management models. These achievements matter, especially in a country where the quality of basic services still varies widely between regions.
However, the energy and gas chapters of the report tell a different story. The association reiterated the urgency of addressing the 20% gap in natural-gas availability, the pressures caused by rising import costs, and the uncertainty created by an unstable regulatory environment. Andesco has repeatedly expressed concern about the institutional health of the Energy and Gas Regulatory Commission, pointing to vacancies and governance challenges that weaken the regulator’s independence.
Financial concerns remain front and center. Outstanding subsidies from 2024 and early 2025 continue to weigh heavily on utility companies, and Andesco warned that the funds earmarked for this year do not fully cover what will be required. This mismatch risks reopening the cash-flow crisis later in 2025 or 2026.
Sanchez also stressed that reliable public services are Colombia’s most powerful equalizer. When subsidies are not paid on time or when supply becomes erratic, it is low-income households that feel the impact first and most severely.
The push for a greener system and what’s blocking the transition
Colombia has spent the past decade positioning itself as a regional leader in renewable energy, but the numbers presented this year show the transition slowing down. The government set a goal of reaching 6 gigawatts of nonconventional renewable capacity by 2026. As of 2025, only about a quarter of that capacity is operating. Environmental licensing delays, uncertainty around land access, and weak institutional coordination have become major obstacles.
Andesco has supported sustainable reforms where progress is possible. One example is the new regulation allowing wastewater-treatment plants to make responsible use of biosolids, an initiative that the association says can expand circular-economy practices nationwide.
But while these steps are meaningful, the broader energy-transition path remains clogged. Without faster permitting, stronger investment signals, and a stable regulatory framework, Colombia will struggle to shift away from fossil-fuel dependence — particularly dependence on imported gas.
That dependency has sparked a controversial question: Should Colombia revisit the debate on fracking? Sanchez has been blunt on the matter. He argues that it makes little sense to import gas extracted through fracking abroad while blocking conversations about responsibly exploring similar techniques domestically. Whether the country will take that path is uncertain, but the discussion has returned to the national stage precisely because supply shortages have grown more acute.
Colombia, a fragile energy system under strain
The picture that emerges from Andesco’s balance is a country standing at a fork in the road. On one side is the path of short-term fixes — import more gas, release emergency subsidies, stretch aging infrastructure a little further, and hope that demand stays manageable. On the other side lies the harder but necessary route: Updating regulation, restoring investor confidence, expanding domestic exploration both offshore and onshore, and accelerating renewable projects that have been stuck in administrative bottlenecks.
If the country continues down the first path, the warnings about a technical blackout could eventually become reality. If it chooses the second, Colombia could transform its energy landscape and stabilize the costs of essential services for millions of households.
If a technical blackout struck Colombia in the coming months, tens of millions of people could be affected — perhaps more than 15 million households. According to the latest data from DANE, there are around 18.5 million households in Colombia as of 2024. Also, official estimates suggest about 97 % of those homes — roughly 18 million — currently rely on public electricity service, meaning that a widespread blackout would cut power to nearly the entire country.
The consequences would be severe and immediate. Without electricity, households would lose access to basic comforts and essential services: refrigeration to preserve food and medicine, lighting for security and productivity, and heating or cooling systems. In addition, many businesses, from small neighborhood stores to industries, would halt operations, affecting livelihoods and income for large segments of the population.
In rural areas and for vulnerable families, who already sometimes lack stable access, the blackout could deepen inequality: services freeze, incomes fall, and daily life becomes precarious. The ripple effects of a prolonged outage would touch nearly every sector of society.
For now, the alarm is ringing. Whether the government, the private sector, and regulators move quickly enough to avoid another national crisis remains the defining question of the year.