Greenwood Energy, the Latin American renewable energy subsidiary of the Libra Group, and the Confederación Indígena Tayrona (CIT), the organization of the Arhuaco people from Colombia, has launched the Terra Initiative, a utility-scale solar project in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. The first-of-its-kind project was created in partnership with the Arhuaco people, and is designed to support preservation and reforestation of land that the International Union for Conservation of Nature describes as “the most irreplaceable nature reserve in the world.”
The Initiative is currently in pre-construction and includes six utility-scale solar plants providing 144 megawatts of clean energy that will be sold on Colombia’s National Interconnected System. The Initiative will create opportunities for the Arhuaco people with green energy jobs and skills training, and the development of three villages with solar energy and storage systems, sustainable agricultural farms, schools and health facilities.
In addition, CIT will be paid for every kilowatt-hour generated by the solar plants with the funds going towards land preservation. Over the project’s lifetime, the Arhuaco people will be able to preserve 119,000 hectares of new land in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta – a land size larger than New York City, Berlin, or Seoul. It will also create a power generation offset of more than one million tons of CO2.
