The government of Ecuador announced this Friday that it decided to extend until February 29 the suspension of the scheduled blackouts that it applied between the end of October and mid-December, due to the low generation in the hydroelectric plants due to the drought.
The Executive had suspended power cuts during the holidays Christmas and New Year and had even extended the measure until January 15, due to the improvement in the flows of the rivers that feed its main hydroelectric plants.
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The rains of recent weeks have contributed to the Government extending the suspension, as indicated in a statement by the Ministry of Energy.
Data from National Electricity Operator (Cenace) specify that the reservoir that feeds the Paute hydroelectric complex (one of the most important located in the southern Andes of the country) has reached sufficient levels for the proper functioning of the Mazar and Amaluza plants.
“This favorable situation is mainly due to the rains in recent weeks, which has allowed the participation of hydroelectricity to increase in supplying demand.” internal energy, the source added.
The good performance of these plants has even allowed us to “drastically reduce the daily import of energy from the Colombian and Peruvian system,” with values of less than five gigawatts for each hour of the day so far in January, he said.
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According to Cenace, currently the total internal demand has been covered with 70% generation from hydroelectric plants and other non-conventional plants, 25% from thermal plants (using natural gas or petroleum derivatives) and 5% from the import of electricity from Colombia or Peru.
On the other hand, the Ecuadorian authorities reported that they decided to carry out maintenance on several generation plants from mid-January to next March, a fundamental strategy in energy operation, especially in dry periods.
After thirteen years without blackouts, Ecuador once again suffered from rationing in 2023, especially in the last quarter of the year due to a severe drought that affected the main hydroelectric plants.
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However, experts also blamed the electricity crisis on the lack of maintenance and investments during the government of conservative Guillermo Lasso, who handed over power on November 23 to the businessman. Daniel Noboaright during the blackout season.
