Invest in Colombia's Energy Future
USD $10 million over 36 months to deploy Latin America's first "cooperative-energy-in-a-box" platform, with 30% contractual community economic participation guaranteed per project.
Which return is which — read this before any figure in this section
The target IRR for the institutional investor is 8-12% (7-10 year horizon, scaling to 14-18% in scenarios with 50-60% FENOGE co-financing). That is the figure applicable to whoever invests in the autonomous trust.
The simulators on this site (solar simulator, archetype simulator) report a "project IRR": the return on the energy savings the community no longer pays to the grid or to diesel. It is a different figure on a different basis and is not the investor's return. Never compare them directly. See the reconciliation of both bases →
Nothing on this page constitutes an offer, a recommendation, or investment advice.
Four reasons to invest now
Regulatory convergence, verified demand, and the complete absence of an integrated operator in the region
Market opportunity
The pipeline identified by CleantechHUB exceeds USD $1 billion, with over 400 projects evaluated. On a conservative base of 5,000 energy communities x 200 kWp x COP $4,000/Wp, the addressable market amounts to COP $4 trillion (~USD $1 billion); including storage and services, it exceeds USD $1.5 billion.
Electricity tariffs rose 60.5% between 2020 and 2025 (from COP $491/kWh to COP $789/kWh national average; COP $900-1,150/kWh in the Caribbean), while the global solar LCOE reached USD $0.043/kWh. Grid parity has already been broadly achieved.
The regulatory window
Decreto 2236 de 2023 (Decree 2236 of 2023) recognized energy communities as legal entities for collective or distributed generation (AGRC and GDC).
Resolucion CREG 101 072 de 2025 (CREG Resolution 101 072 of 2025, April 6, 2025) integrated them into the SIN (national interconnected system) and the ZNI (non-interconnected zones), with a maximum of 5 MW per community, enabling virtual boundary aggregation, more than 500,000 families, and a target of at least 1 GW of additional FNCER (non-conventional renewable energy) capacity.
Phase 1 is structured at 36 months deliberately to span the administrative transition: PPAs are designed independently of regulatory incentives, so that CREG 101 072 is an accelerator, not a prerequisite.
First-mover advantage
There is no "cooperative-energy-in-a-box" operator anywhere in Latin America. Communities that want to organize lack technical assistance, financial structuring, and access to capital simultaneously — and no current offering solves all three barriers at once.
The evidence is in the gap: out of 18,471 applications, only 285 were formally established (a 1.5% rate). CTH's hypothesis is that this is a capacity bottleneck — of processing at CREG (the energy regulatory commission) and of technical assistance — not a lack of demand. That hypothesis is diagnosed, not assumed: it is the go/no-go gate of the USD $50K pre-investment in months 0-6.
Structural impact guarantee
The 30% community economic ownership is not an aspirational goal: it is codified in the trust agreement and in each SAS's bylaws, via Community Participation Certificates (CPCs).
Community cash flows are automatic (contractual waterfall, not discretionary); community representation on the trust committee is mandatory; participation cannot be diluted without unanimous approval. This is a contractual right, not goodwill — the fundamental difference from discretionary "community benefit" models.
Grid parity has already been reached
Electricity tariffs rose 60.5% between 2020 and 2025 — from COP $491 to COP $789/kWh national average, and COP $900-1,150/kWh in the Caribbean — while the global solar LCOE reached USD $0.043/kWh. The window is not a projection: it is a market fact.
The gap between demand and execution
Demand is quantified and verifiable. Establishment does not keep up — and that distance is the opportunity
Energy communities in Colombia: applications vs. established vs. target
Each bar comes from a different source and date and is labeled accordingly: target from the National Development Plan (PND) 2022-2026; 2024 applications and April 2025 registrations per IISD/JET Knowledge Hub; operational as of October 2024 per MinEnergia (Ministry of Energy). This is not a time series and the bars are not successive stages of a single measured funnel: they are four independent counts placed on the same scale. The figure for operational communities is approximate ("~100") in the source.
Solar resource
The national average of 4.5 kWh/m2/day is substantially higher than the European average (~3.0). La Guajira reaches 5.5-6.0+ kWh/m2/day; Choco, 3.5-4.5. See the map by department →
Confirmed international cooperation
MAF/GGGI (EUR $16.8M + EUR $124M co-financing), Journey Fund (USD $100M), CIF via IDB (USD $70M), USAID Energia para la Paz (USD $13M), CONPES 4158 Colombia Solar (COP $8.35 trillion) and FENOGE (Colombia's non-conventional energy fund) 500 Communities (COP $349,375M). Together, over USD $500 million committed to the ecosystem over the next 5 years.
The 30% community share is contractual, not aspirational
The 30% community economic participation per project is codified in the trust agreement and in each SAS's bylaws, via Community Participation Certificates. Cash flows are automatic through a contractual waterfall and cannot be diluted without unanimous approval. It is a right, not goodwill.
Five revenue streams for the Venture Builder
Four fees defined in the trust agreement, plus a services platform that only exists at scale
What these tabs do not show
No project source documents the percentage contribution of each revenue stream across years 1 through 4. The fee bases are documented and are what is shown here; the revenue mix over time is not, and building that breakdown would mean inventing it. The amounts in the "Platform," "Advisory," and "Carbon" tabs correspond to an explicit scenario of 500 cooperatives — well above Phase 1 (3-5 projects) — and are not projected Phase 1 revenues.
Development fee
Basis: per project, on CAPEX. Amount: 3-5% of project CAPEX. Collection timing: at financial close.
Compensates origination (Ruta Verde pipeline, over 400 projects evaluated), bankability assessment, establishment of the SAS vehicle within the sub-trust, PPA negotiation, and the design and issuance of each community's CPCs.
It is the only one of the five charged once per project rather than on a recurring basis.
Management fee and performance fee
Management — basis: trust AUM. Amount: 1.5-2.0% annually, settled quarterly. It is level 5 in the payment waterfall, above community participation and institutional return.
Performance — basis: distributions above the hurdle. Amount: 10-15% on whatever exceeds an 8% IRR, settled annually.
The 8% hurdle coincides with the floor of the institutional investor's target range (8-12%): CTH only participates in the upside once the investor reaches the minimum of their range.
Software platform
Estimated annual revenue in a 500-cooperative scenario — not in Phase 1:
- Cooperative management SaaS platform (CoopEnergia): USD $900K ARR
- Energy-sharing and virtual billing engine: USD $300-600K
- Digital MRV and carbon credits platform: USD $500K-1M
Aggregation is what makes this business viable: an individual community project is too small to justify carbon credit verification on its own. Pooling hundreds of projects under a single Programme of Activities creates bankable scale from micro-scale generation.
None of these businesses exist today in Latin America.
Advisory, training, and standards
Estimated annual revenue in a 500-cooperative scenario:
- Cooperative formation consulting: USD $1.1M
- Regulatory and permitting advisory: USD $500K-1M
- Training academy (with SENA, Colombia's national training service): USD $200-500K
- Cooperative quality seal: USD $150-300K
- Cooperative insurance brokerage: USD $30K (growing)
This is the line that turns the 1.5% establishment bottleneck — the problem diagnosed by the pre-investment — into a billable service, if the diagnosis confirms the cause is capacity rather than regulatory design.
Carbon and I-RECs
Carbon monetization fee — basis: carbon revenue. Amount: 15-20% of credit sales, charged at issuance.
Voluntary carbon credits: Verra VCS or Gold Standard methodology (preferred for SDG co-benefits); Colombian grid emission factor ~0.407 tCO2e/MWh (2024); estimated generation of 0.35-0.40 tCO2e per MWh after conservative discounts; price of USD $8-15 per credit (Colombian voluntary market, 2026).
For the Phase 1 portfolio (10-20 MW): 3,000-5,000 tCO2e/year = USD $24,000-75,000/year. Relative to the fund size this is a minor line; its value lies in the incremental flow per project and in the MRV data asset it enables.
I-RECs: registration under the International REC Standard, at COP $8,000-15,000 per MWh (~USD $2-4/MWh), with growing demand from Colombian corporates for RE100 and CDP commitments.
Want to review
the numbers?
The corporate structure, the 8-level waterfall, and the reconciliation of the two IRR bases are documented in detail. The due diligence covers 55 items and is also published.