The weather conditions in the country maintain an increase in the level and flow in the first days of 2024 in the reservoirs of some hydroelectric power plants. The higher the flow and the more rain, the lower the risk of new blackouts. Energy Minister Andrea Arrobo announced a few days ago that a new evaluation will be conducted on January 8 this year to determine whether the blackout will continue again, that is, a new break without power cuts for citizens.

Flows also increased:

Despite this, the production of the hydroelectric power plant was reduced in a few days of this first year. While on December 30, through Elektrooperator (Cenace), he reported that energy from hydroelectric plants was at 91 percent, this January 4, it reached only 75 percent. In any case, it does not reach critical levels, like those 60% when there were power cuts.

According to Fernando Salinas, an expert on energy issues, it is difficult to answer at the moment what will happen with power outages in the future, since it depends on what will happen with the weather. This indicates that these days it is seen that there is rain, which made it possible to avoid power outages. But if it stops falling, rationing will surely return.

Given that in recent days we have again reached a production level of hydroelectric power plants of 91 percent, he explains that this is possible because if there is enough production due to rain, then it is consumed.

Progress in the Toachi-Pilatón hydroelectric project

Meanwhile, the Minister of Energy and Mining, Andrea Arrobo, together with members of the Supervisory Commission of the National Assembly, inspected the construction process of the Toachi-Pilatón hydroelectric plant, with a capacity of 254 megawatts.

According to the ministry, the launch of the Toachi-Pilatón hydroelectric complex is essential to deal with the coming low water levels, since its energy contribution is complementary to that of the power plants located on the Amazon slope.

Arrobo and members of the assembly confirmed work on the 204 MW Alluriquín plant, the largest in the project. The work records progress of 78% in the installation of electromechanical components. During that visit, the minister pointed out that the lack of political will on the part of the previous government did not allow progress in solving the problems faced by the Toachi-Pilatón hydroelectric project.

According to Salinas, the launch of Toachi-Pilatón could still take a few months, since it is planned to be tested in the last quarter of 2024. As for the minister’s position in the sense that it would be due to a policy of lack of will not launched before this work, he agrees. He says that the two previous administrations (that of Guillermo Lass and that of Lenín Moreno) did not solve the problems left by the administration of Rafael Correa.

Consider that there may have been a political desire in this attitude to show that what that government was doing was wrong; However, no new infrastructure was built to cover the increasing demand. This attitude could have been generated by an attempt to favor fuel importers. In any case, he assures that the state could have invested funds in the improvement of the power park. And, if he had done that, he would not have had to pay more than 200 million dollars in the end to import electricity from Colombia.

It is true that at least in Toachi-Pilatón, a number of irregularities occurred, such as the gloss issued by the Oversight Office for more than 90 million dollars and structural damage, such as cracks and other problems.