The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, stated yesterday that the country has nearly 70% of energy classified as clean, and that its energy mix is not based on fossil fuels. He made this claim in a controversial comment on his account on the social media platform X, where he argued that hydroelectric energy, which is very important in Colombia’s energy system, should be classified as “clean.”
The controversy began following a statement by Camilo Prieto, a well-known Colombian environmentalist with ties to the opposition, in which he claimed that “today, about 78.4% of our primary energy mix depends on fossil fuels.” Prieto also added that “natural gas accounts for about 21.3% of the total,” which means that “Colombia will continue to require natural gas even as late as 2052.”
Related: Petro Slams OFAC, Urges Expansion of Brazil’s PIX System to Colombia.
Petro claims nearly 70% of Colombia’s energy is clean
Petro made this assertion in response to a social media post in which the author relies on a study by the Mining and Energy Planning Unit (UPME), which does not take into account that hydroelectric energy produced in the country is also clean.
Through his X account, President Gustavo Petro emphasized that the author of the post was misled by “false data from the UPME; I myself told them to correct it and they did not.”
“The country does not have an energy mix with 78% in fossil energies. That is not true, because most of the energy mix is hydroelectric and not fossil; the novice technicians at UPME only count solar and wind as clean energy, but they do not count hydroelectric, which is the majority of our energy, depending on the climate, nearly 70% is clean energy,” he explained.
In this regard, he clarified that “hydroelectric energy is not fossil; so you are misled by your own desire to oppose the government. Add today the energy that flows clean and then add the hydroelectric, solar, and wind capacity; due to the excessively rainy climate, Colombia’s energy mix is 100% clean.”
He stated that “during the few droughts in the country, hydro generation decreases; however, ‘not so much anymore due to the implementation of solar energy carried out by the government.’”
“From fossil energies we will receive a maximum of 6 gigawatts of energy capacity, but only during droughts. With a greater effort from the Minister of Energy and especially from Ecopetrol, which can be revived, we will have a 100% clean energy mix year-round,” he noted.
Hermano Camilo, vuelves a equivocarte y te contesto: te dejaste engañar de los datos falsos de la UPME, yo mismo les dije que corrigieran y no corrigieron.
El país no tiene una matriz energética con una matriz de 78% en energías fósiles. Eso no es verdad, porque la mayor parte… https://t.co/IUO4KGH8JN
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) April 4, 2026
Discrepancy over what clean energy is
He clarified to the author that “you are completely wrong on energy matters. If you look at it from this perspective and do not let yourself be misled by non-technical charts and your own political will, you will know that if you look at Colombia’s energy tariff system, you will discover the great scam against the Colombian people.”
On this tariff issue, he argued that “clean energies are very cheap, but they are charged on the market as if the energy were produced from petroleum liquids or imported gas, just as your statistical hallucination shows.”
“Colombia’s energy is clean, but it is sold at the price of dirty fossil energy, only because a mathematical formula from the CREG (issued during the administrations of Ivan Duque, Juan Manuel Santos, and Alvaro Uribe) determined it that way, bringing a scarcity rent (treating the price of energy as land rent is treated), ingenious and deceptive for the people and, above all, unconstitutional,” he stated.
President Petro reiterated that the Constitution itself “orders that public service tariffs correspond to their production costs, but the hydroelectric generators, which dominate the market, also operate in the judicial courts with money.”
“Justice does not correct the unconstitutional absurdity, which is the energy formula and which has transferred billions from the national economy as rents abroad and to the Antioquia business group that controls Empresas Públicas de Medellín through control of its board of directors,” the head of state concluded.