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Quito– Ecuador has signed contracts for an additional 91 megawatts to cope with the energy crisis and mitigate the effects of the next dry season, the Andean country’s Energy Minister Antonio Gonçalves reported on Sunday.
The minister reported on his X social network account that they awarded and signed an additional contract to install 91 megawatts of thermal energy in Esmeraldas.
“With this, we have added a total of 341 MW in emergency contracts to cope with the energy crisis and mitigate the effects of the next dry season,” he recalled, referring to the 250 MW contract signed earlier this month.
“We have awarded and signed additional energy contracts to install floating generation leases in Quevedo, Salitral and Las Esclusas, for a total of 250 megawatts, in response to the energy crisis and the upcoming dry season,” he said on August 6 in the social network mentioned.
These processes are carried out in accordance with the ministerial agreement of April 16, in which a state of emergency was declared in the electricity sector and the provisions allowing access and additional generation of electricity were issued.
Last month, the leasing process began for a floating power plant that will soon arrive to address the country’s energy crisis and avoid a new round of blackouts and brownouts, such as those experienced in late 2023 and in April this year.
Last month, Goncalves detailed that the lease contract for the floating power plant had been awarded to Turkish company Karpower for 18 months and was worth $115 million.
The official noted that the ship is expected to start providing energy to Ecuador in August this year with a power of about 110 megawatts.
In late 2023 and mid-April, drought exposed problems in the country’s electricity sector, which is highly dependent on Colombian hydroelectric power for generation and supply, leading to planned blackouts and power cuts of up to 13 hours in parts of the country.
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in April due to public disasters.
It is estimated that the power cuts cost the country about $12 million per hour. JS
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