Enel Colombia Completes 985-MWdc Solar Complex as Atlántico Starts Up

• Enel Colombia started commercial operation of its 256-MWdc Atlántico solar plant, completing a 985-MWdc complex in Colombia's Atlántico department.
• Enel calls the cluster Colombia's largest solar complex; Guayepo I&II is the country's largest single solar plant.
• Atlántico, rated at 199.5 MWac by design, should generate about 525 GWh a year from 403,920 panels on trackers.

Enel Colombia has started commercial operation of its Atlántico solar plant, rated at 256 megawatts of direct-current (MWdc) capacity. The plant completes a three-plant complex of 985 MWdc in Colombia's Atlántico department, the company said in an Oct. 21 statement.

The other two plants are Guayepo I&II, at 462.4 MWdc, and Guayepo III, at 266 MWdc. In recent days Guayepo I&II added 5 MW of net effective capacity and Guayepo III added 20 MW. Enel calls the cluster Colombia's largest solar complex and Guayepo I&II the country's largest solar plant.

Atlántico, in the municipalities of Sabanalarga and Usiacurí, has a design rating of 199.5 MWac, its project page shows. Its panels sit on trackers that follow the sun across 34 sub-fields. Construction began in November 2024.

The Atlántico complex in numbers

• 985 MWdc across the three plants, enough to supply about 3 million people, according to Enel.
• 403,920 panels at Atlántico, or about 634 W of DC capacity per panel (list.solar calculation).
• 525 GWh a year expected from Atlántico, a 30% capacity factor on its 199.5-MWac design rating (list.solar calculation).
• 1.28 DC-to-AC ratio at Atlántico: 256 MWdc against its 199.5-MWac design rating (list.solar calculation).
• 2,500+ construction jobs at Atlántico, more than 75% held by residents of the department.
• 1,726 MW of solar PV in Colombia at the end of 2025, IRENA data show.

Enel Colombia now runs six utility-scale solar plants in Cesar, Magdalena and Atlántico, with more than 1,404 MWdc. That is about half of the country's centrally dispatched solar capacity in operation, the company said.

Enel said the complex helps back up the power system during an El Niño that is testing Colombia's grid.

Enel did not give the exact date of the commercial-operation declaration, saying only that it came recently.