The Energy and Gas Regulatory Commission (CREG) submitted to public consultation the Draft Resolution 701-103 of 2025 , which establishes the technical, commercial and operational conditions for the integration of Energy Storage Systems with Batteries (SAEB) in the National Interconnected System (SIN).
This document continues what was started with CREG Resolution 098 of 2019 and seeks to formalize the role of storage in the planning of the electricity sector, promoting its remuneration and participation in the market.
The project recognizes SAEBs as network assets when they fulfill functions such as managing congestion, supporting contingencies, and improving service quality.
Furthermore, it requires UPME to include them in the Expansion Plan, formally integrating them into the system's planning.
It also states that energy taken and delivered across independent trade borders must be clearly differentiated to ensure transparency in operation and settlement.
Minimum efficiency targets and unavailability limits are set with financial compensation in case of non-compliance, and it is expected that the selection of projects in the STN will be done through competitive processes open to national and international investors, promoting competition and better prices for the system.
For Camilo Agudelo , a member of the World Energy Council , this project represents something the sector has been eagerly awaiting for a long time, and he emphasizes: "It's about changing the paradigm of energy storage to store energy and then provide it when needed as electricity supply or replacement of a generator, moving from on-site consumption to becoming a complementary service for electrical systems in general."
In a dialogue with Energía Estratégica , he points out that this transformation is especially relevant in regions like the Colombian Caribbean, where transmission networks are saturated and storage can help alleviate operational stress.
One of the most promising advances lies precisely in complementary services, such as the contributions that batteries could make to decongesting transmission networks, responding to demand, improving reliability, and many more projections for this type of device that are already seen in the country today.
The specialist emphasizes that the project formalizes what were previously pilot initiatives and ensures greater coherence in planning, and warns that the public consultation process is an opportunity to perfect the document.
The idea is to properly conduct the Regulatory Impact Analysis, considering its legal, economic, and financial effects, as well as its harmonization with other existing regulations.
The experience of CREG Resolution 098 of 2019 yielded valuable lessons: the public call was innovative, but it did not achieve full results due to doubts about the remuneration and the effectiveness of the selection processes.
That is why the specialist considers it crucial that this new resolution manages to close the regulatory and implementation cycle, so that storage stops being seen as an experiment and becomes a structural tool for reliability, efficiency and energy transition for Colombia.