energy
Massive blackout: millions of Ecuadorians without electricity
In April, the Ecuadorian government declared a state of emergency due to power shortages. Photo
© Dolores Ochoa/AP/dpa
Problems in the power grid triggered a chain reaction, and then the entire energy system collapsed. Maintenance was neglected for years. There are also difficulties in generation.
A nationwide power outage has left millions of Ecuadorians without power. “It was a chain reaction. When certain power plants failed, a ‘blackout’ effect occurred: the demand for energy was suddenly greater than the supply, which led to the collapse of the national power grid,” said Energy Minister Roberto Luque. After a few hours, around 60 percent of the South American country’s households had power again. Electricity.
“The incident shows that the Ecuadorian energy system is in crisis. It was caused by a lack of investment in the maintenance and construction of power lines,” said Minister Luque. “The energy crisis has several aspects: in April there were problems with generation, now there are problems with transmission.”
In April, the Ecuadorian government declared a state of emergency due to shortages in the electricity supply. In order to ration energy, the power was switched off for several hours at a time in various regions of the country. Due to a severe drought, the water levels in the region’s reservoirs reached historic lows. Ecuador generates 78 percent of its electricity from hydropower.