Ecuador’s power situation in November 2026

Ecuador runs mostly on water. On November 5, hydro plants supplied 74% of the 100,684 MWh delivered on the national grid and thermal plants 25%. Imports from Colombia came to 108 MWh, about a tenth of one percent, according to the grid operator, CENACE.

The system’s one large store of water for the dry season is the Mazar reservoir, at the head of the Paute cascade, whose plants have supplied 35–40% of the country’s electricity for four decades. At midnight on November 6 Mazar stood at 2,127.13 m above sea level, 12 m above the 2,115 m level its operators treat as a floor. Its lowest point this year was 2,120.95 m, on October 20. It rose 5.3 m between October 28 and November 4 and has been falling again since: on November 6 the cascade averaged 743 MW, about 268 MW more than that day’s inflow alone could sustain (CELEC Sur).

On the same date in 2023 the reservoir was at 2,116.75 m, and in 2024 at 2,114.24 m; both were years of rationing. In 2025, when there was none, it was close to full, at 2,153.86 m.

The water above 2,115 m on November 6, about 59 hm³, is worth roughly 164 GWh through the cascade, less than two days of national demand. A full reservoir holds about 836 GWh, a little over eight days (CENACE annual report).

The 2,115 m floor is an operating practice that keeps sediment away from Mazar’s turbines, not a level at which generation must stop. In 2024 the reservoir spent 67 days below it, and Mazar’s own plant still generated on 44 of them. Inflows in the first six days of November were close to normal: 95% of the November average at Mazar, and 96% for the Paute basin.

Most of Ecuador’s hydro capacity sits on the eastern, Amazon slope of the Andes: 4,308.95 MW in 33 plants, 83% of the national total, according to the grid operator as reported by teleSUR. That slope’s dry season runs from October to about March. The Pacific slope gets its rains only from December, so October to December is the quarter when both are low at once.

The sequence has repeated in recent years. The dry season drains Mazar, the thermal fleet that should back it up is short of working units, Colombia has little to sell in the same drought, and the country rations. It happened from late October to December 2023 (Primicias) and again in 2024, when household cuts reached 14 hours a day and the Central Bank put the cost at USD 1,916 million, 1.4% of GDP (El Universo).

Ecuador’s largest plant, the 1,500 MW Coca Codo Sinclair, is on the same slope and has almost no storage: its reservoir holds about four hours of water, so the plant generates what the Coca river brings. On November 5 the river carried 184.4 m³/s at the intake and the plant averaged 832.3 MW (CENACE); full output needs about 222 m³/s. Sediment stopped the plant 28 times in 2024 and 31 to 33 times in 2025 (Primicias).

The larger risk is upstream. Since the San Rafael falls collapsed on February 2, 2020, about 20 km below the intake, regressive erosion has been working its way up the riverbed toward it. CELEC’s reports of October 15 and 20 place the erosion front at Km 3+600, 3.6 km from the intake, where it has held since about August 2025 (CELEC). It moved about 2.5 km in the floods of April and of June and July 2025. A permeable dike at Km 7.8, which cost about USD 19–20 million, was partly destroyed by a flood on May 21, 2026, 38 days after it opened (Primicias). The structure planned closest to the intake, at Km 3.0, is still at the design stage.

Estimates of when the erosion could reach the intake works differ. The energy minister, Juan Carlos Blum, said in June that studies put it there in 2027 (Primicias). The US Army Corps of Engineers estimated in February 2024 that it could take two to five years (Primicias). CELEC said in April 2025 that the intake ran no risk. If the intake were lost, the fallback is a new one upstream on the Quijos river: at least 18 months of studies and three years of building, USD 400–500 million or more (about USD 700 million on a 2022 CELEC estimate), and 30–40% less water, on one academic estimate (Primicias). Primicias reported in 2021 that the plant’s insurance had stopped covering erosion that January (Primicias).

Thermal plants are the backstop, and they are close to their limit. Ecuador has 2,386 MW of thermal capacity on paper but about 1,300 MW in working order (La República). On November 5 they averaged 1,066.9 MW and reached 1,197.89 MW in the busiest half-hour, 91.7% of it from liquid fuels (CENACE). By October 16 they had generated 6,164 GWh this year, more than the 5,038.52 GWh of all of 2025 (CENACE annual report).

New capacity is arriving slowly. Of the 1,650 MW of firm thermal capacity the energy ministry asked CELEC and Elecaustro for on July 28, about 1,150 MW of it rented, 126.5 MW was in commercial operation on September 16 (Primicias). What looks firm for the rest of the year comes to about 110 MW: a 45 MW rental at Santa Elena from November 12 (KCH), 50 MW at Pascuales in December at best, and 15 MW at Jaramijó around the turn of the year. A 60 MW rental at Salitral was due to be awarded on November 4 (Primicias). A rented 260 MW power barge is planned for December, but no operator, contract or price had been made public by mid-October (Expreso).

CENACE’s operating plan for this dry season, presented in June, assumed 1,092.1 MW of new capacity between June 2026 and August 2027, about 490 MW of it by October. Even on that assumption it gave a 2% probability of a deficit of up to 330.65 GWh in November, about 450 MW on average (Primicias). Demand growth alone calls for about 390 MW of new firm capacity a year.

In earlier dry seasons Colombia sold Ecuador power over a 450 MW link. This year it has mostly stopped. Colombia suspended exports on January 22, resumed them on August 5 and stopped again on September 7, under CREG Resolution 101 127, which during Colombia’s own risk period allows exports only from surplus (CREG, Primicias). Since then Ecuador has bought only one-day blocks, at USD 0.52 to 1.13 per kWh. In January, before the suspension, imports averaged USD 0.086 per kWh.

The rule stays in force until Colombia’s reservoirs, measured as CREG specifies, rise above a threshold set by its curves, or until CREG ends it. On November 6 they were at 82.02% against a threshold of 89.00%, on a reconstruction from the market operator’s published data.

Demand has grown faster than planned. It reached a record peak of 5,634.85 MW at 19:30 on July 15, against the 5,206 MW the master plan projected for this year’s peak (Primicias). Net production was 18.8% higher than a year earlier in June, 22.2% in July and 19.6% in August (CENACE): July averaged about 4,517 MW, against about 3,696 MW in July 2025. The sources reviewed for this article give no official explanation for growth on this scale.

Demand peaks between 18:00 and 20:30, after sunset; on November 5 the peak was 5,144.88 MW at 19:30. Solar plants add energy in daylight, which lets hydro plants hold water back, but they add firm evening capacity only with storage. Executive Decree 515, published on September 30, gives priority to renewable projects with storage (Metro Ecuador).

The government has promised households no cuts and has closed the gap by disconnecting industry. A voluntary commitment by large consumers from September 22 became mandatory 48-hour disconnections on September 29 (Primicias). From October 12 about 9,000 users, 185 high-voltage (AV1) customers and about 8,900 at medium voltage, had to stay off the grid for 72 hours a week (Vistazo). Only 47 of the 185 high-voltage firms can generate their own power (Primicias).

On October 22 José Julio Neira, the presidency’s secretary general of public administration, said the disconnections would end on November 1 (Primicias). On October 30 the energy ministry and the distributors instead ordered high-voltage users to take no power from the grid from November 1 to 4. Vistazo reported that medium voltage was excluded (Vistazo); El Comercio reported that the order covered both high-voltage categories, AV1 and AV2 (El Comercio). The sources reviewed for this article show no schedule for the days after November 4.

Households have not been fully spared. Unplanned outages hit parts of Guayas, Guayaquil, northern Quito and other cities between October 12 and 14 (Primicias).

Industry is also paying more. A temporary tariff for October to December consumption averages USD 0.30 per kWh for AV1 customers and USD 0.29 for AV2, against about USD 0.12 before (Primicias). Decree 32 gives high-voltage customers 18 months from its publication on June 18, 2025 to have their own generation: December 18, 2026, counted from the official gazette, though most press reports give December 15 (Primicias). Generating sets cost about USD 500,000–600,000 per MW and take six months or more to arrive (Primicias).

The state pays as well. ARCONEL’s cost study for 2026 puts the cost of service at 12.833 US cents per kWh against an average price of 10.606 cents, a USD 598.29 million deficit, of which USD 497.48 million is for 798.5 MW of rented emergency plant (ARCONEL).

A very strong El Niño is under way. The Oceanic Niño Index reached +2.46 °C for August to October (NOAA), and NOAA’s October update gave 83% odds that the October–December season reaches what it calls historic strength (NOAA). The event is forecast to fade in the northern spring: the IRI puts the odds of El Niño conditions at 90% for April–June 2027 and 61% for May–July (IRI).

In Ecuador, El Niño mostly means rain and floods on the coast. Its effect on the Amazon slope, where most of the hydro capacity is, is weak and uncertain. A 2023 study by Thielen and colleagues found no significant rainfall anomaly there in any type of extreme El Niño, and the second years of the 1997–98 and 2015–16 events were mildly dry (NHESS). The national risk management agency’s El Niño plan expects a marked water deficit in the Amazon region (SNGR). On this evidence El Niño is unlikely to bring Mazar relief.

It does change the shape of the risk for 2027. The erosion front at Coca Codo Sinclair has moved with floods in the Amazon slope’s own wet season rather than with El Niño: five of its six advances since 2020 came in June or July (Primicias), and those of 2025 came with the Pacific close to neutral. A mildly dry 2027 would mean fewer of the big floods that move the front, but also a weaker refill of the reservoirs between April and September. CENACE’s June plan assumed no risk of deficit from October 2027 to March 2028; a dry refill would undo that assumption. Neither case makes the front safe, since a single storm can produce the flood that matters.

• Mazar’s level each night, on CELEC Sur’s production page. A steady fall toward 2,115 m before the Pacific slope’s December rains would add pressure for more cuts.
• Whether the industrial disconnections resume after November 4, on what schedule and on what legal basis.
• Santa Elena’s 45 MW from November 12, the Salitral award and the December power barge.
• Colombia’s reservoirs against the CREG threshold.
• Decree 32’s self-generation deadline in mid-December.
• NOAA’s next El Niño update, on November 12, and CELEC’s reports on the erosion front.

Reservoir levels, inflows and plant output come from CELEC Sur’s daily operating reports; the values for 2023 to 2025 come from the same reports. National generation, demand and fuel figures come from CENACE’s daily operating data and monthly reports. The volume and energy above 2,115 m are calculated from CELEC’s 2013 level–volume curve for Mazar, at 2.783 GWh per hm³ through the cascade, and the output drawn from storage is calculated from the same data; both are estimates. Press reports are cited where they are the only public source, and official statements and forecasts are attributed to whoever made them.

Data run to November 6, 2026. The agencies that publish these figures can revise them.