Danubius International Conferences, 22nd EMAN Conference. Social Responsibility and Sustainability Accounting-Key Corporate Performance Drivers and Measures

Life cycle assessment of a wind farm in Colombia. The case of Jepirachi in the Guajira region

johan andres velez
Last modified: 2018-04-05

Abstract

Colombia is known by its clean electricity resources. In the National Interconnected System (NIS) the hydropower dominates the system with the 67.1% of the installed capacity. Following is the 27% of the thermic generation and the 5.9% represented in small generators and co-generators, in which 0.10% comes from a Eolic farm in the Guajira Zone with 19.5 MW of capacity installed (XM filiar de ISA, 2016). However, little effort has been made to move on beyond the high dependence of the electricity system to hydropower resources.

In 2014, Colombian government introduced the Law 1715 with the intention to integrate the non-conventional renewable energy sources in the Colombian electricity system. With this Law, the Colombian government aims achieve three goals. First, providing the energy system with different energy resources such as Wind and Solar in order to protect the energy system against climatic variations. Second, achieve the commitment made in COP-21 to reduce its carbon emission for 2030 (García Arbeláez et al., 2015). Three, contributing with the Sustainable development goals, in particular the goal 7th to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (United Nations, 2017). Furthermore, by 2030 the government has the goal to promote and install 3000 MW of Wind power in the Guajira region

This paper presents the life cycle assessment of the Wind Farm located in the Guajira region, north of Colombia. A power project developed to know what the environmental impacts are produced for this type of energy projects, and identify the potential environmental impacts caused by this resource. The results will help the policymakers and stakeholders to planning and preventing potential environmental impacts in order to provide a clean energy into the system.