Hydroelectric power generation dropped from 90% to 78% of normal levels, and power outages ensued | Economy | News

According to Cenace (the national electricity operator), the hydroelectric power plant of Coca Codo Sinclair was operating at just 1% as of noon on June 17. In addition, the Agoyan-San Francisco hydroelectric plant was operating at 0%.

A few minutes ago, Energy Secretary Roberto Luque reported that the amount of sediment in Coca Codo exceeded a few thousand parts per million, which forced the operation of the hydroelectric plant to be paralyzed.

To this end, Cenace asked the control centres of distribution companies to plan the schedules and sectors that will be affected by the suspension of electricity services on that day (i.e. when the outage is restored).

In this sense, he explained that users will be able to view the blackout schedule on the portal of each distribution company and in social networks.

As Minister Luque has explained since Sunday, the problem in Coca Codo is due to high flows caused by heavy rains, which have led to problems at three hydroelectric power plants in the country. In Coca Codo Sinclair, these flows have produced a lot of sediment, so it has stopped operating since 07:00 on Sunday. This has made 1,500 MW unusable.

At the Agoyán plant, high flows caused flooding in the power plant, leading to an emergency shutdown, which meant a loss of 360 MW in the system. Agoyán is connected to the San Francisco power plant, which was therefore disabled: considering that all power plants were paralyzed for the same reason, the total loss was 2,145 MW.

Thus, on Monday the 17th, the entire hydroelectric complex was operating at 78% capacity, a significant drop if we consider that on June 15, hydroelectric plants were operating at 90% capacity, the normal level when the country was not facing water shortages.

Thus, with Coca Codo, Agoyán and San Francisco almost cancelled, Molino has 45%, Sopladora has 11% and Mazar has 6%. That is, they are the ones who have the most support for hydroelectricity this Monday. In contrast, last Saturday, when the situation of the power plants did not change, Coca Codo had 25% of hydroelectricity and Agoyán San Francisco had 11%.

Meanwhile, this Monday some measures were taken to avoid blackouts. Luke had anticipated the planned cuts, but in the end they did not happen and the minister ruled them out a few hours later. The 400 megawatts that could be purchased with Colombia were activated, as was the entire thermal power plant.

Sediment clean-up is underway and the three plants are expected to resume production. However, problems remain.

Minister Luke has made several announcements of changes throughout the day since Sunday. First, he said that there will be production cuts due to problems at the aforementioned plant. A few hours later, he assured that the two Koca Kodo turbines are operational and that there will be no blackouts due to other measures taken. Finally, unfortunately, it was just confirmed that there will be layoffs. They have already started. (Yo)