Imports of electricity from Colombia would become cheaper due to the resolution expanding the production resources of the neighboring country, which provides electricity to Ecuador in the midst of the energy crisis the country is going through and which generated the beginning of blackouts. from the 27th of last October.

This new resolution in Colombia was announced this Thursday morning, December 14, by the Minister of Energy and Mining of Ecuador, Andrea Arrobo, on her X account (formerly Twitter).

Former Minister of Energy: ‘I miscalculated, it’s a human error’, on the costs of importing electricity from Colombia

President Daniel Noboa, we have good news from Colombia. With the resolution, the resources for the production of electricity have been expanded by the neighboring country, which will reduce the cost of importing energy for Ecuador,” the minister announced.

Arrobo said a few weeks ago before the Oversight Commission of the National Assembly that the cost of obtaining energy from Colombia has increased by 35%, which has never been seen under normal conditions, and it has not happened in Colombia’s history of energy imports; and now the costs that companies have to take on are too high: “We’re talking about $220 million accumulated for the whole year.”

Power shortages will be suspended in Ecuador for Christmas and New Year

He stated that, together with the Deputy Minister of Electricity Ramiro Díaz, he made an estimate according to which the renovation of the existing thermal park cost between 150 and 200 million dollars, but with the 220 million dollars that the country went to Colombia the energy crisis in a different way, without taking taking into account external costs.

The import of this energy source was managed directly by the former President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, at the end of October last year, when he traveled to Bogotá for a meeting with his colleague Gustavo Petro, but there was no mention of costs on that occasion. “Colombia is supporting us by guaranteeing that it will export 10 gigawatt hours a day,” Lasso announced last October 28, a day after the blackouts began in Ecuador. This delivery represents 450 MW.

For his part, the former Minister of Energy Fernando Santos Alvite admitted on December 5th a human error in calculating the costs of these imports. “Maybe I believed that Colombia would sell us a large amount of energy at a good price. I miscalculated; “It’s a human error,” said the former minister, who nevertheless asserted: “But every current minister will also fall for this statist system.”