ABSTRACT
Electraguas claimed that other provinces had even more pressing needs and that La Florida II would be justified only when demand had reached 13 megawatts. The Colombian government sent larger amounts of funds, transforming the utility into the single largest business on the island. Six hundred miles to the northwest of the Caribbean coast of Colombia but only 200 miles east of Nicaragua lies the archipelago of San Andres and Providencia. Rural electrification began in Colombia in 1900. The economic system reigning in Colombia made it not only unprofitable but simply ruinous to provide electricity to peasants, yet this proven fact did not stop the Agency for International Development (AID). According to the original AID formula, United States funds would go to newly created Electric Cooperatives in which the inhabitants of small towns and rural areas would pool their resources.
