In La Guajira, wind is not just weather; it is a resource with promises attached. Windpeshi, a large wind farm planned between Uribia and Maicao, returned to the spotlight after a long pause that left communities waiting.
Ecopetrol reopened meetings with Indigenous Wayuu authorities to explain the work plan and rebuild trust. The message was simple: The project wanted to move again, but it needed community participation to avoid repeating past mistakes.
A project that hit pause
Windpeshi’s construction was suspended in mid-2023 after delays piled up and the schedule slipped. For people living nearby, that pause was not abstract; it meant fewer jobs, less local spending, and more doubts about whether the project would ever finish.
The ownership story also changed. In July 2025, Ecopetrol acquired the company that owned Windpeshi, making it a project expected to be operated 100% by Ecopetrol, and placing it inside the company’s energy transition plans.
With the project back under Ecopetrol, the restart began on the social side first. Meetings in Uribia and Maicao were set up to go over tasks, timing, and responsibilities before construction activity picked up again.
Wayuu dialogue comes first
Ecopetrol planned 30 community visits and had completed 15 at the time of the update. These sessions covered social, environmental, engineering, land management, and security issues, showing that “building turbines” is only one part of the job.
The visits included the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Ministry of the Interior, and a team of more than 40 professionals. The support mattered because consultation processes can be complex, especially when multiple communities and local authorities are involved.
Across La Guajira, wind projects have faced challenges around social acceptance and fair benefit-sharing in Indigenous territories. That context is why companies often treat the community process as seriously as the technical design.
What Windpeshi is building
On paper, Windpeshi was designed for 205 MW of installed capacity with 41 wind turbines in the Uribia and Maicao area. If it starts operating in 2028, it will be among Colombia’s largest wind parks.
The project was framed mainly as a self-supply for the Ecopetrol Group. That means the electricity would help power the company’s own operations, reducing how much fossil-based energy it needs to buy from the grid.
The climate math was a big part of the pitch. Windpeshi was projected to avoid more than 140,000 tons of CO2 per year, described as similar to taking 90,000 vehicles off the road for a year.
Why La Guajira keeps attracting turbines
La Guajira is often singled out as Colombia’s main wind-energy hotspot, with strong and consistent trade winds. Industry estimates have placed the department’s potential in the tens of gigawatts, far beyond the capacity of projects built so far.
But great wind does not cancel real-world obstacles. Large wind farms need roads, transmission lines, secure work conditions, and clear land agreements, and delays in any of these can freeze progress, even when the turbines are already ordered.
Windpeshi sits inside that bigger learning curve. If it advances with stable agreements and clear local benefits, it can become proof that big renewable projects can work in La Guajira without leaving communities feeling ignored.
From pause to power
The next challenge is not only restarting construction, but also keeping the dialogue steady while the schedule moves forward. If the planned community work continues and timelines hold, Windpeshi can deliver jobs, skills, and cleaner electricity over many years.
If delays return, the cost will not be only financial. It will be more lost time, more frustration, and another reminder that the energy transition is not just megawatts and maps, it is the daily reality of the people living next to the turbines.