Although the Government and the electric companies ruled out power cuts for these days, on the night of Wednesday, October 4, there was a power cut in parts of several cities in the country, and until 4 p.m. this Thursday there was no official statement. Will there be new ones? ‘blackouts’.

This situation comes after it was unofficially known that the Ecuadorian authorities are looking for new approaches with Colombia for the sale of energy and that Natalia Gutiérrez, the president of the Colombian Association of Electricity Producers (Assocogen), invited the Ministry of Energy of Colombia. , the interconnected system operator and administrator of the Colombian wholesale energy market and the Energy, Gas and Fuel Regulatory Commission “to review the conditions for the exchange of electricity with Ecuador.”

In his statement about To, he said, “he does not stop monitoring the neighboring country in the situation of the breakdown of electricity that it experiences whenever it is possible for us as a country”.

She explained that Colombia currently has enough energy to overcome the ‘El Niño’ phenomenon, but assured that “we have to take care of our resources (water and gas) for what could happen in the coming months.”

A representative of Colombia’s manufacturing sector said that rainfall in September was 55.87%, which represents the worst record in history for that month. He also warned that “we consume the water in reservoirs faster than they are filled. Therefore, our priority must be to guarantee the supply from today and during the coming months, in which the El Niño phenomenon will be felt with greater intensity,” he said. He also assured that in 20 days his country could fall below the minimum level of reservoirs established by the Government (63%), and in less than 4 months we could be without hydraulic production.

The sale of power from Colombia is crucial at the moment for Ecuador, which is also going through a severe dry season, which is reducing hydropower production and, without a specific alternative to compensate for this reduction, has already experienced the first blackouts at the level of … national, since last Monday. These cuts were rejected by the energy body, resulting in more than one contradiction.

So, despite the fact that the Government warned for the first time last Tuesday that between October 2 and 5 there will be special shutdowns from 4 to 5:30 p.m.; He later backed off, indicating that an agreement had been reached with Colombia not to carry out the maintenance work they had planned and for which cuts were initially made on Monday. Therefore, it is excluded that there will be cuts.

However, this October 4 and 5, the cuts could not be postponed. Energy Minister Fernando Santos Alvite told the Primicias portal that this was due to an unusual increase in energy consumption.

In Quito, cuts were recorded on the 5th in the La Mariscal district, in the streets of José Tamayo and Veintimilla, on Av. Orellana, Bellavista Alta and Tumbaco parish, between Aurelio Dávila Cajas and Joaquín de la Barrera roads. However, the Quito Electric Company reported that work is planned on light poles and cables that supply neighborhoods.

In any case, on this day none of the authorities, neither from the Ministry, nor from Cenače, nor from Celec, reported what can be expected in the coming days. It was expected that there would be a new conversation with Colombia.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Energy announced that production block 1 of the Sopladora Hydroelectric Power Plant went into operation today at 08:30. This represents an additional contribution of 163 megawatts MW of power to the Ecuadorian electrical system, thus guaranteeing the energy supply of the entire country.

Commissioning of this unit is achieved after inspection and maintenance work on the generator turbine assembly. Two blower units were stopped due to failures caused by poor quality material used by the Chinese contractor, as reported by Celec director Gonzalo Uquillas a few weeks ago.