EPM Electricity Bill Medellín 2026: 50% Surcharge Rules

Your EPM electricity bill in Medellín just got a new set of rules for 2026. As of August 15, 2026, every regulated EPM customer has an individual consumption target based on their own billing history. Save enough below it and you build a claim on a share of a payout pool, disbursed after a liquidation period; use too much and a surcharge of up to 50% applies to the excess on your current bill.

The change comes from Resolución CREG 101 120 de 2026, issued by Colombia’s energy and gas regulator on July 30, 2026. It’s confirmed for rollout across EPM Group’s subsidiaries — including EPM itself, Afinia, CHEC, CENS, EDEQ and ESSA — per Pulzo’s reporting on the resolution and company statements reported August 20–21, 2026 by El Colombiano and Telemedellín.

Quick answer: Since August 15, 2026, CREG requires EPM and every other regulated electricity company to assign each customer an individual consumption goal — a daily-average target calculated from their own billing history and applied each billing cycle. Use less than 90% of your goal in a cycle and you build up “recognized saved consumption,” capped at 30% of your goal — measured in kWh, not pesos. That recognized savings only sets your share of a payout pool made of surcharges EPM actually collects from over-consumers in its own market; the pool is settled at the end of each liquidation period — the first one is the entire six-month program, August 15, 2026 to February 14, 2027 — and paid as a bill credit (“saldo a favor”) on the billing cycle after that, not your next one. Use 90–110% of your goal and nothing changes. Go over 110% and EPM adds a surcharge to the excess only, on your current bill — 30% for estrato 1-3, 50% for estrato 4, 5 and 6, and 70% for commercial and industrial accounts.

Last updated: August 21, 2026 — the program end date, El Niño probability and earthquake-relief decision below are all still moving.

Your consumption vs. your goal	What happens to your bill
Below 90%	Earns “recognized saved consumption” (kWh, capped at 30% of your goal) — sets your share of a pooled bill credit paid after the liquidation period, not an automatic discount
90%–110%	No change
Above 110%	Surcharge on the excess only: 30% (estrato 1-3) · 50% (estrato 4-6) · 70% (commercial/industrial)

Example: Say your calculated goal works out to a daily average of 9 kWh — a realistic figure for a mid-size Medellín apartment — which comes to 270 kWh across a 30-day billing cycle. If you use 330 kWh, only the amount above 110% of your goal (297 kWh) — 33 kWh — gets surcharged. For an estrato 4-6 account, that’s 33 kWh billed at 1.5× the normal rate, not your full 330 kWh.

How the new consumption target works

Each regulated customer’s “goal” is calculated automatically by their commercializer — EPM, in Medellín’s case — as the median of each billing cycle’s average daily consumption across the 12 cycles invoiced before the resolution took effect, per the resolution text itself (Article 6). No application is required, and the figure is set once for the entire program rather than recalculated month to month. Commercializers had ten business days from the effective date to begin publicizing the program broadly (Article 18); separately, and with no fixed deadline, they must keep showing each customer’s own goal on the bill or another channel for as long as the program runs (Article 19), per the resolution and Telemedellín’s reporting.

The program is transitional: it took effect August 15, 2026 and is set to run through February 14, 2027, a six-month term the resolution allows CREG to extend. Hospitals, schools, prisons and other public-interest facilities are outside the program’s scope, as are prepaid-meter customers, rooftop-solar self-generators (AGPE), and accounts billed on estimated rather than metered readings, per the resolution text (Article 4) and Pérez Llorca’s legal bulletin on the resolution.

The payout side works differently from a simple discount. Under the resolution, a customer who uses less than 90% of their goal in a billing cycle earns “recognized saved consumption” — measured in kilowatt-hours, capped at 30% of their goal (Article 13). That figure doesn’t set a peso amount directly; it determines the customer’s proportional share of a pool built from surcharges their own commercializer actually collects from over-consumers in that same market, calculated per liquidation period rather than per billing cycle, with no transfers between different commercializers or markets (Article 12; Article 15, Parágrafo 1). The pool is settled at the end of each liquidation period — the first one covers the whole six-month program, August 15, 2026 through February 14, 2027 — and paid out as a bill credit (“saldo a favor”) on the billing cycle that follows, per the resolution text. Two groups get no payout even if they’d otherwise qualify: customers in arrears on their electricity bill as of the liquidation date, and customers with technically confirmed meter tampering or energy theft (Article 14). An earlier, pre-resolution proposal reported by El Espectador on August 2, 2026 had floated discounts of up to 40% — that number describes the proposal stage, not the mechanism CREG ultimately issued.

Why EPM is doing this now: El Niño risk

The trigger is hydrology, not politics. Colombia’s rainy-season reservoirs feed most of the country’s electricity generation, and forecasters have been raising the odds of a severe dry spell since midyear. NOAA and IDEAM data reported by El Colombiano put the probability of a “very strong” El Niño at 81% for the October–December 2026 window, in a NOAA forecast issued July 9, 2026 and reported by El Colombiano the next day. A follow-up NOAA update on August 14 — also reported by El Colombiano — raised that figure to 95%, with peak intensity still expected between September 2026 and January 2027.

“Si tenemos disminución en los embalses, si hay aumentos exagerados en el consumo, vamos a quedarnos sin agua para generar energía” (“If reservoir levels drop and consumption rises sharply, we’ll run out of water to generate power”), said Eliana María Díaz Restrepo, who works in EPM’s customer-education and community-outreach area, per El Colombiano. The scheme is meant to flatten demand before that risk peaks.

Electricity costs are also under review elsewhere this month, for an unrelated reason: following the August 10, 2026 earthquake, the national government is still evaluating — not yet deciding — possible relief on power bills in the hardest-hit zones. Antioquia is among the departments the government is weighing relief for, alongside Caldas, Cauca, Chocó, Quindío, Cundinamarca, Risaralda, Huila, Valle del Cauca, Tolima, Putumayo and Norte de Santander, per Infobae. Infobae reports roughly 70% of Antioquia’s earthquake-damaged homes are in rural areas outside Medellín — a separate track from the 12-month grace periods Colombian banks have already rolled out after the same earthquake.

That’s a separate track from the CREG savings program above, and no relief decision has been made yet — but it’s a reminder that EPM bills are in flux on more than one front this month.

Estrato 4-6, and what you’re already paying on your EPM electricity bill

Even before this surcharge, estrato shapes what you pay every month. Under Colombia’s standard cross-subsidy system, estrato 1 gets a 60% discount on the base energy cost, estrato 2 gets 50% and estrato 3 gets 15%. Estrato 4 pays the plain unit cost with no subsidy or surcharge, while estrato 5, 6, and commercial/industrial accounts pay a 20% contribution on top, so their rate is 1.2× the base cost, per La República’s reporting from April 2026. That article’s main subject is a separate, proposed MinMinas surcharge on estrato 4-6 to help cover utility Air-e’s debt, unrelated to the CREG program above, and its status is unconfirmed as of this writing; it’s cited here only for the baseline subsidy figures it independently confirms. Stack that baseline under the new CREG surcharge and the exposure compounds: an estrato 6 household that also blows past its consumption goal pays both the 20% contribution and up to a 50% surcharge on the excess.

That estrato 4-6 baseline is also where much of Medellín’s foreign-resident population already lives. El Poblado sits predominantly in estrato 5 and 6, and Laureles-Estadio predominantly in estrato 4 and 5, per Alcaldía de Medellín neighborhood profiles (El Poblado; Laureles-Estadio). Provenza, the nightlife-and-coworking stretch popular with digital nomads, is part of El Poblado rather than a separate neighborhood, so it carries the same estrato 5-6 status.

What the new rules mean for your EPM electricity bill in Medellín

If your building is estrato 4, 5 or 6 — true for most rented apartments popular with expats — your consumption goal is calculated automatically from your last 12 billing cycles and is required to appear on your EPM bill or online account (see the FAQ below); neither EPM nor CREG has published a separate public lookup tool. Air conditioning, electric water heaters and appliance-heavy households are the most exposed to the 50% surcharge tier. It’s one more line item to watch alongside a strengthening peso that’s already squeezing dollar-funded budgets and Medellín’s highest-in-Colombia inflation reading — small monthly costs that add up fast for anyone converting savings from abroad.

Frequently asked questions

Who’s excluded from the CREG consumption-goal program?

Hospitals, schools, prisons and other public-interest facilities, prepaid-meter customers, rooftop-solar self-generators (AGPE), and accounts billed on estimated rather than metered readings are all outside the program’s scope, per the resolution text (Article 4) and Pérez Llorca’s legal bulletin. Separately, even customers who do qualify can end up with no payout: the resolution excludes anyone in arrears on their electricity bill at the liquidation date, or with technically confirmed meter tampering, from receiving a benefit (Article 14).

How do I find out what my consumption goal is?

You don’t need to calculate it yourself. Commercializers had ten business days from the program’s August 15, 2026 start to begin publicizing it broadly (Article 18). Separately, for as long as the program runs, EPM and the other commercializers must keep showing each customer’s own individual goal on the bill or through another channel — the resolution sets no fixed deadline for that ongoing disclosure (Article 19), per the resolution text and Telemedellín’s reporting.

What if I just moved in and don’t have 12 months of billing history?

You still get a goal. Under the resolution (Article 6), customers without at least 180 days of complete billed cycles in the reference period get a reference goal instead: the median of the individual daily goals of other users in their same comparison category (user type combined with urban or rural location), per the resolution text. That matters if you’ve just moved to Medellín and opened a new EPM account — expect your early goal to be based on that comparison-category median rather than your own consumption record until you build up enough billing history of your own.

Does the surcharge apply to my whole bill, or just the extra consumption?

Only to the consumption above 110% of your goal — not to your entire month’s usage — per Pérez Llorca’s legal bulletin.

When will the surcharge or discount first show up on my EPM bill?

The surcharge can appear as soon as a billing cycle after August 15, 2026 shows consumption above 110% of your goal — EPM hasn’t confirmed the exact first cycle. The savings side runs on a slower clock: it’s settled at the end of a liquidation period (the first one covers the whole six-month program, through February 14, 2027) and paid as a bill credit on the cycle after that, per Article 15 of the resolution — so a saver shouldn’t expect a credit on their very next bill.

Are prepaid-meter customers affected?

No. Prepaid-meter customers, along with AGPE self-generators and non-meter-read accounts, are excluded from the program entirely, per the resolution text (Article 4) and Pérez Llorca’s bulletin.

Figures above reflect Resolución CREG 101 120 de 2026 and related reporting through August 21, 2026. EPM has not yet published exact per-customer target figures or confirmed the first billing cycle the surcharge will appear on, and the government’s earthquake-related electricity relief discussion is still open — check your EPM account or a verified EPM channel before assuming how a specific bill will be affected.