Andean energy transition: the women structuring Colombia, Peru and Chile's pipeline

Female leadership is already defining the financial architecture of the Andean energy transition

The energy transition in the Andes has moved beyond regulatory promise to become a concrete pipeline of investments, regulatory frameworks and tenders. What distinguishes the current project structuring cycle in Colombia, Peru and Chile is a feature that conventional analyses tend to overlook: women hold executive and ministerial positions where capital allocation, regulatory design and risk negotiation decisions are made.

This article examines how female leadership in the Andean region intersects with three simultaneous vectors: the expansion of renewables and storage in Chile, solar acceleration and gas self-sufficiency in Colombia, and the structuring of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in Peru. The central argument is straightforward: the quality of the Andean energy pipeline depends, to a significant extent, on the institutional capacity these leaders are building.

Who are the decision-makers in the Andean energy pipeline?

The profile of female leadership in Andean energy infrastructure has evolved. Women have moved from advisory roles to leading the financial and regulatory structuring of megaprojects.

In Peru, Paola Lazarte, former Minister of Transport and Communications, drove a PPP portfolio of nearly US$ 4 billion from the MTC, according to GRI Institute data. That figure represents not just committed fiscal volume, but a signal about the scale of decision-making that a single ministerial position can mobilize when technical competence is combined with political will. Lazarte's experience in structuring road, port and telecommunications concessions offers a replicable model for Peruvian energy infrastructure, where the country faces bottlenecks in transmission and distributed generation.

In Colombia, the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) actively promotes the role of women in the energy transition. The ANH Congress highlighted the participation of leaders such as Elsa Jaimes, Offshore Vice President at Ecopetrol, whose position is strategic in a country that has only 5.9 years of natural gas self-sufficiency unless exploration is resumed and reserves are strengthened, according to Naturgas and PPU Legal data. Managing Colombia's offshore sector, which combines transition hydrocarbons with marine renewable resource prospecting, requires exactly the type of technical-financial leadership that Jaimes represents.

These trajectories share a common pattern: direct access to the risk structuring process. Whoever defines the terms of reference for a tender, negotiates the risk matrix of a PPP or calibrates the environmental criteria of a licensing decree determines which projects advance and which stall. That structuring power is today exercised by women in key positions across all three Andean countries.

How does Andean energy regulation connect with investment opportunities?

The current regulatory framework in the region offers clear signals for project developers.

In Colombia, the LASolar Decree allows ANLA to authorize solar energy projects between 10 and 100 MW using environmental and sociocultural criteria designed to drive the Just Energy Transition. This instrument reduces licensing timelines and opens a window of opportunity for developers operating in the mid-scale segment — a niche where regulatory agility can be more decisive than capital volume. Renewable energy in Colombia has already surpassed 3 GW of capacity connected to the national grid, representing approximately 13.87% of the energy mix, according to Revista Cambio.

In Chile, the Energy Transition Law introduces significant regulatory changes: new transmission projects are tendered through the National Electric Coordinator (CEN), while expansions remain the responsibility of asset owners. This differentiation creates two parallel markets with distinct risk profiles. Chile's energy portfolio projects a total investment of US$ 15.706 billion distributed across 156 initiatives, with 40% focused on power generation and 34% on storage systems, according to the Capital Goods Corporation (CBC). In terms of capacity, that portfolio will add 8,972 MW to the National Electric System between 2025 and 2029, with its peak projected for 2027.

Storage emerges as the most dynamic vector. By 2027, Chile's electric system is projected to have approximately 9 GW of operational storage with an average duration exceeding four hours, according to ACERA A.G. That figure positions Chile as a hemispheric benchmark for grid-scale battery integration — a segment that demands simultaneous financial and regulatory sophistication.

The convergence of these regulatory frameworks creates an Andean corridor of opportunity where the energy transition advances at different speeds but with complementary instruments. Colombia accelerates solar licensing, Chile structures storage and transmission at industrial scale, and Peru deploys the institutional muscle of PPPs to channel private capital toward critical infrastructure.

Why is care infrastructure relevant to urban energy strategy?

An aspect frequently absent from energy infrastructure analysis is its connection to urban strategy and care infrastructure. Transmission, distributed generation and storage projects do not operate in a vacuum: they are embedded in territories where urban planning determines easements, access, grid connections and, increasingly, equity criteria in benefit distribution.

A gender-focused approach to project structuring brings a concrete operational dimension. The leaders who today participate in designing tenders and regulatory frameworks integrate territorial impact variables that traditional financial models tend to underestimate: access to basic services in areas of influence, qualified local employment generation and long-term social sustainability. Far from being ancillary, these variables determine the political viability of projects and, therefore, their bankability.

General infrastructure players such as Grupo GIA, which was awarded a US$ 370 million hospital concession project in Chile according to 24 Horas, illustrate how civil infrastructure and energy infrastructure share a common PPP structuring ecosystem. Experience accumulated in public service concessions generates transferable capabilities for the energy sector, particularly in long-term contract management and coordination with local authorities.

The GRI Institute ecosystem as an intelligence and connection platform

The intersection of female leadership, energy transition and Andean infrastructure is precisely the territory that GRI Institute maps through its events and member community. The GRI Women Shaping Infrastructure Andean event has established itself as the region's leading forum where energy pipeline decision-makers engage directly with investors, developers and regulators.

The platform's value lies in its ability to convert sector intelligence into actionable relationships. The data analyzed in this article — from Peru's PPP portfolio to Chile's storage projections — acquires strategic relevance when cross-referenced with direct access to those leading these processes.

Three conclusions emerge from the analysis:

The quality of the Andean energy pipeline is inseparable from the quality of its institutional leadership. Paola Lazarte in Peru and Elsa Jaimes in Colombia represent a new profile of decision-makers who combine technical depth with structuring capacity at scale.

The Andean regulatory corridor offers differentiated and complementary opportunities. The LASolar Decree in Colombia, the Energy Transition Law in Chile and the PPP framework in Peru create a mosaic where investors can diversify exposure by instrument, not just by geography.

Energy infrastructure and urban strategy converge at the territorial level. Projects that integrate social impact criteria and a gender-focused approach from the structuring phase present lower risks of community opposition and greater long-term contractual stability.

The 2025–2029 Andean energy investment cycle, with over US$ 15 billion projected in Chile alone and growing capacity in Colombia and Peru, will be shaped by the decisions these leaders are making today. The GRI Institute community will continue documenting and facilitating these connections in the coming months.