Termopaipa power station

Part of the Global Coal Plant Tracker, a Global Energy Monitor project.

Download full dataset

Report an error

Related coal trackers:

Global Coal Mine Tracker Global Coal Terminals Tracker Global Coal Project Finance Tracker

Termopaipa power station (Central Térmica Termopaipa) is an operating power station of at least 343-megawatts (MW) in Paipa, Boyacá, Colombia with multiple units, some of which are not currently operating. It is also known as Sochagota power station (Unit 4).

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Plant name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Termopaipa power station	Paipa, Boyacá, Colombia	5.7682, -73.1472 (exact)

Loading map...

{"type":"SATELLITE","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps3","width":"600px","height":"500px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":false,"layers":[],"controls":["pan","zoom","type","scale","streetview","rotate"],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":5.7682,"lon":-73.1472,"icon":""},{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":5.761639,"lon":-73.157375,"icon":""}]}

Unit-level coordinates (WGS 84):

• Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 5: 5.7682, -73.1472
• Unit 4: 5.761639, -73.157375

Project Details

Table 2: Unit-level details

Unit name	Status	Fuel(s)	Capacity (MW)	Technology	Start year	Retired year
Unit 1	Operating	coal: bituminous	36	subcritical	1963	2035 (planned)
Unit 2	Operating	coal: bituminous	72	subcritical	1975	2035 (planned)
Unit 3	Operating	coal: bituminous	70	subcritical	1982	2035 (planned)
Unit 4	Operating	coal: bituminous	165	subcritical	1999	–
Unit 5	Cancelled	coal: unknown	150	CFB	–	–

Table 3: Unit-level ownership and operator details

Unit name	Owner	Parent
Unit 1	Gensa SA ESP [100%]	Gensa SA ESP [100.0%]
Unit 2	Gensa SA ESP [100%]	Gensa SA ESP [100.0%]
Unit 3	Gensa SA ESP [100%]	Gensa SA ESP [100.0%]
Unit 4	Compañía Eléctrica de Sochagota SASESP [100%]	Luz y Fuerza de San Lorenzo SA de CV
Unit 5	Gensa SA ESP	Gensa SA ESP

Ownership Tree

This ownership tree is part of the Global Energy Ownership Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Background

Termopaipa consists of four domestically-fueled, subcritical coal units built between 1963 and 1999. The plant runs on bituminous coal.

Units 1-3 are owned by Gensa, and Unit 4 is owned by owned by Compañía Eléctrica de Sochagota, formerly owned by ContourGlobal.

The four operating units have the following capacities:

• Unit 1: 36 MW
• Unit 2: 72 MW
• Unit 3: 70 MW
• Unit 4: 165 MW

Unit 1 began operation in 1963, Unit 2 in 1975, Unit 3 in 1982, and Unit 4 in 1999.

A fifth unit (Paipa V) with a capacity of 150 MW was proposed but never completed.

In June 2022, it was reported that Gensa was planning to build solar-power generating capacity at the Termopaipa plant in order to "be more sustainable," although no news of retiring any of the coal-fired units was provided.

In May 2023, Gensa signed a collective labor agreement with the Paipa Branch of the Colombian Energy Workers Union, which intended to better the working conditions and employment benefits of the power plant's employees.

Units 1-3 generated 760.36 GWh in 2024, 5.11% lower than achieved in 2023. In 2024, Units 1-3 generated 760.36 GWh, 5.11% less than in 2023. The report attributed the decrease to maintenance of Unit 3, forced outages and deratings after nearly 20 months of continuous operation, while the plant's dispatchability for the period reached 48.63%.

In December 2025, Gensa's president conducted an on-site inspection of maintenance works on Units 1 and 2. For Unit 1, the replacement of the condenser piping was completed as planned for 2025; remaining works were scheduled for a maintenance shutdown in 2026, with an investment of approximately COP 25 billion (US$5.7 million), intended to restore the unit's net effective capacity to 36 MW. Maintenance works on Unit 2 involved an investment of approximately COP 22.5 billion (US$5.2 million).

Maintenance

Scheduled maintenance outage for Unit 3 was carried out from June 1 to October 9, 2024. The works included overhaul of the turbine, maintenance of the boiler, and maintenance of auxiliary equipment; the unit returned to commercial operation on October 16, 2024 with a 10 MW derating, which was removed at the end of 2024 after the scheduled maintenance outage restored its net effective capacity.

A 2025 inspection report stated that several maintenance and investment projects had been suspended because of liquidity constraints, including cooling-tower implementation, structural reinforcement of Unit 2 coal hoppers, structural reinforcement of coal hoppers for Units 2 and 3, and replacement of visual boiler-drum level indicators for Units 2 and 3.

Gensa carried out isokinetic monitoring campaigns at the three Termopaipa generating units to evaluate atmospheric emissions, with 80% compliance for measured parameters. Gensa also conducted air-quality, noise, surface-water and discharge monitoring, continued reporting air-quality monitoring data to Corpoboyacá for a specific point in the area of influence, and prepared a pollutant dispersion model for the plant. Termopaipa continued treatment of leachate from the coal yard and maintenance of the treatment plant. It also reported a 20% reduction in the plant's emissions-intensity indicator, which stood at 1.207 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per MWh.

Units 1-3 (Gensa): Plans for a renewable energy conversion

When operating at full capacity, the three units owned by Gensa (Units 1-3) burn an estimated 2050 tons of coal per day.

In a December 2023 interview, Gensa's president Henry William Cruz Casas stated that the company had plans to install a 50 MW solar farm at the power station, as well as invest in geothermal and "waste to energy" power projects at the same site. According to Casas, the company anticipated financial and planning support from the national government to help facilitate the energy transition, which would include the dismantling of Termopaipa's coal-fired units in 2035.

In a March 2025 interview with Caracol Radio, Javier Otero, leader of technical services planning for the Termopaipa plant, indicated that Gensa has been exploring a variety of alternative fuel sources for Termopaipa, including solar and wind farms, geothermal energy, and collaboration with miners to implement solar panels in coal mines. Mr Otero estimated that these projects could be implemented within 5 to 7 years.

Gensa's 2024 Sustainability Report highlighted the company's efforts to develop five concrete alternatives for the conversion of Termopaipa units 1-3, to be implemented by 2030.

In February 2025, Gensa's president Henry William Cruz Casas announced plans for a series of renewable energy projects in Boyacá, including a 50 MW solar farm in Paipa, a 35 MW geothermal project in partnership with Ecopetrol, and wind energy projects. The company indicated that the target date for the conversion of Termopaipa's units was 2028. In March 2025, Gensa announced ten specific alternative projects for replacing coal generation, with projected investments of approximately US$185 million between 2026 and 2030, including synthetic methane, biomass conversion, oxyhydrogen, waste-to-energy technology, and solar projects at coal mines.

Unit 4 Sale by ContourGlobal

In March 2025, ContourGlobal announced completion of the sale of its Sochagota coal-fired power plant to Inversiones Andinas Diversas S.L., part of a Latin American power generating group with presence in the region for the past 30 years. This transaction marked a key milestone in ContourGlobal’s commitment to stop generation from coal-fired power plants well before 2027. ContourGlobal first invested in Sochagota in 2006, but acquired a controlling interest in December 2022, after purchasing the remaining 51% that it didn’t previously own from STEAG Power GmbH. Another source clarified he Spanish entity Inversiones Andinas Diversas SL (which is present in Colombia) is ultimately owned by Luz y Fuerza de Honduras Group.

Sale announcements referred to the capacity of the unit at 177MW while previous records indicated capacity of 165MW. As of May 2026, the Compañía Eléctrica de Sochagota's website described Unit 4's net installed capacity as 150 MW, compared to the nameplate capacity of 165 MW recorded at the time of the unit's commissioning.

Proposed Paipa V expansion

In a June 2011 report entitled Visionando una nueva unidad para Termopaipa, Gensa (Gestión Energética S.A.) announced that it was undertaking feasibility studies and seeking environmental permits for a new 150 MW Unit V (known within the company as Paipa V) at the Termopaipa facility. In September 2013, Gensa reconfirmed these plans, stating that the company planned to invest US$250 million in the Unit V project, which it estimates will burn about 400,000 tons of coal annually.

In its 2014 annual report (issued in March 2015) Gensa expressed hopes that Paipa V would receive the necessary environmental permit in 2015 so that the project could be included in Colombia's next national energy auction. Gensa’s 2015 Sustainability Report (Informe de Sustenibilidad 2015) confirmed the company's ongoing commitment to the Paipa V project, noting that Gensa would continue to invest in development of Termopaipa V and work with Colombia’s environmental authorities, with an eye towards including the project in Colombia’s next national energy tender.

In January 2017, Gensa and Colombia's National Environmental Licensing Authority held a public hearing on the plans to build the new unit; about 700 people attended. Attendees complained about pollution from the existing units of Termopaipa, and called for Unit 5 to be built using strict environmental controls.

CREG, Colombia's national energy regulatory agency, ultimately called off the anticipated 2017 energy tender, affirming that energy supply from existing plants and those already under construction would be sufficient to supply the country through November 2020. Further complicating Termopaipa V's prospects, the Colombian government in September 2017 proposed procedural changes for future tenders that would likely pose economic challenges to traditional hydrocarbon-fueled plants, and in November 2017 announced a new national tender for solar and other renewable energy projects, to be held prior to the next presidential election in May 2018.

As of January 2021 there has been no further news about Paipa V, and the project appears to be cancelled.

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of coal-fired power stations, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Plant Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.