On Bullets and PowerShips in Ecuador
Public security is sliding in Ecuador, but the country's battle against electricity generation is more threatening. Hydro electric power is not working, and should not be part of the solution.
Ecuador needs to stop relying on hydroelectric generation.
The country’s various dams, though aged, are not failing. The water is. Mazar, the largest reservoir and hydroelectric project in the country feeds three hydro plants; the water level measured on 14 September at 2,124 meters above sea level. The minimal level for power generation is 2115. That’s right, just nine meters of water is what currently prevents hundreds of thousands of Ecuadorian homes, businesses, prisons, commercial centers and the like from semi-permanently losing power.
President Noboa is now face to face with yet another element of rotting infrastructure and poor planning that he was not able to preview before assuming office. Now he owns it. Electricity is now one of the major voter issues that will win him a fresh mandate in April of 2025. He’s just got to figure out how to keep public security from sliding too much — a symptom — while he focuses on a true root cause of what ails his country.
Over the past ten years, Ecuador’s electricity consumption has grown by approximately 29 percent, according to the latest Blance Energético Nacional (BEN) published in 2023 by Ecuador’s Ministry of Energy and Mines. It’s not surprising that electricity generation has not kept up pace with demand. The infrastructure investment made — or not made — was not sufficient to build out additional generation and transmission lines to stay head of demand.
This is why the government has announced a system-wide blackout for the 18th and the 19th of September, from 10pm to 6am. Noboa’s team needs the time to conduct critical repairs and a review of the system to diagnose the problem. Time is needed for diagnosis and critical repairs; time is also why the government has initiated two short-term alleviation strategies: one depends on Ecuadorian businesses. The other on “PowerShips.”
Since 14 September, a PowerShip owned by a Turkish company has been producing power for the Ecuadorian grid — approximately 3% of what the grid needs. The ship has been parked just South of Guayaquil and by all accounts is reliably generating power for the port city. But it’s still not enough for what Ecuadorians need. Reportedly, two more PowerShips are in route, but will likely not be in place to plug in for another month, maybe more.
Meanwhile, the Noboa administration has asked Ecuadorian industry to turn on their diesel generators. CENASE, Ecuador’s national energy grid operator, asked Ecuadorian businesses to turn on their generators to reduce grid load between 13 and 22 September. They’re hoping that this effort will produce some 200MW of power, but the private sector has pushed back. Ecuador’s Comité Empresarial reckons that the industrial contribution might be as much as 100MW, maybe less because most of the diesel generators that industrial plants operate are back-up power only, not to be used for primary power.
Back to the root of the problem: Ecuador’s current electrical output manages to meet some 90% of the country’s demand. This is why rolling blackouts — some announced others not — have hit the country since October 2023. Hydroelectric power stations generate some 87% of electricity in Ecuador. They do not provide a sustainable path forward, in part due to the ongoing concerns with drought — which some have predicted will continue well into the future — and in part due to the reality that Ecuador needs a solution much faster than what building a series of more hydro plants can provide.
Climate change, the niño effect off of Ecuador’s Pacific coast, and the instability that endemic corruption with Ecuador’s hydro plant operators all rolls up into one important conclusion. Hydro power is neither a short term, nor a long term solution. It should not be on the table for future investment.
A less sustainable but important short-term solution is to purchase electricity from Colombia. Though negotiations have been challenging, the two governments appear to be close to a price per MW hour approaching a price that Ecuador can afford to pay. Still, future political tension between the two countries could lead the Colombians to flip a switch and leave Ecuador partially in the dark.
Noboa’s team has also purchased land-based mega generators, which may be placed strategically on the grid around Ecuador to support power generation where it’s needed on the grid. Again, less sustainable but important in the short-term.
Critical maintenance and repairs on transmission lines aside. Corruption aside. Ecuador needs to focus on repair and upkeep for its thermoelectric plants, whose current capabilities — once repaired — may be able to sustain up to 30% of Ecuador’s current national demand. Based on a 10 May 2023 report, only five of the 21 thermoelectric power plants were operating at 100% at that time. There are reportedly plans in place to update, repair, and replace some of these plants, but so far I haven’t been able to find a reliable update on these plans for 2024. Either way, I view thermoelectric power plants as a mid-term solution.
The long term solution for Ecuador needs to be geothermal. Already, there are plans to for the Chachimbiro Geothermal Project in the Imbabura province, which would be running by 2026, if not sooner. There are several other plants under study and in a pre-construction phase.
For the past several decades, Ecuador’s electricity generation has relied on water. But the time for water-driven power generation is over. The next 18 months to two years will be all hands on deck to fix and finagle what is possible to make ends meet, be it Turkish PowerShips or land-based mega generators.
The future is clearly not in water. It’s in fire. This future must be clearly communicated in a simple and easy to understand way for Noboa’s voters, while mitigating to the extent possible unscheduled blackouts. This clear, concise and simple communication is essential to ensuring Noboa’s election in April 2025, despite the growing sense of unease over public security.