Por: Amylkar D. Acosta M.
Ecuador suffers up to 10 hours of energy service rationing daily. We already saw that film, it was filmed in Colombia 32 years ago, when we suffered the rigors of a similar rationing, which lasted for 14 months between 1992 and 1993 (343 days, between 9 and 10 hours of rationing, 15 % of demand). It is being republished there.
The root cause of what is happening in Ecuador is very similar to the Colombian case: 1) 79% dependence on water generation (Colombia 80%). 2) delay in the execution of generation and transmission projects due to the nationalization of the sector and the lack of fiscal space (in Colombia it absorbed 45% of the public debt) for the required investments. 3) of the 3,000 MW installed thermal generation capacity, only 700 MW are operational due to obsolescence and lack of maintenance due to lack of resources. 4) rates are set by the executive, subject to political and not technical considerations. 5) Then as now, the drought served as a trigger for the blackout since, parodying Warren Buffet, we can say that when the water level in the reservoirs drops, you know who was swimming naked!
As a background to the calamity that the blackout meant for the country, it is important to highlight that between 1990 and 1991, several international congresses on energy were held, in which the need for a reform of the System began to be aired, becoming the catalyst that made it possible. Hence the issuance of the public service laws (142 of 1994) and electricity (143 of 1994), which are Siamese sisters, were their response and they assimilated the lessons learned from it.
The most important step had already been taken by the 1991 Constituent Assembly, by establishing in article 365 of the new Political Constitution that, although it is the State that must guarantee the provision of public services, they can also be provided by “organized communities or individuals.” This translated into a private investment of approximately $140 billion in the last 30 years. The installed generation capacity went from 8 GW in 1995 to 21.3 GW in 2024, for an increase of 266%. Coverage went from 70.9% in 1990 to 98.72% in 2023. And the number of users went from 4.4 million in 1990 to 17.7 million in 2023.
The State also reserved its regulatory function, provided for in the same article 365 of the Charter and surveillance through the Superintendency of Public Services, the only one with constitutional rank. The Public Services Law gave life to the regulatory commissions, including the Energy and Gas Regulation Commission (CREG).
Thanks to this institutional framework, Colombia has been able to withstand and resist the onslaught of the El Niño phenomenon and is the only country in Latin America that has not had rationing in the last 30 years. However, today we are faced with a risk of rationing, but for reasons different from those of yesteryear: the financial crisis of the energy marketing companies, the shortage of natural gas, but above all the narrowness of the energy supply that It reduces the System's room for maneuver at a time when the hydroelectric reservoirs are still not satisfactorily recovered.
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