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Peak demand on the Ecuadorian electrical grid hit 5,333 MW on April 10 — roughly 20% above normal, and enough to trigger rolling blackouts across Guayaquil, Daule, and Samborondón. The Ministry of Environment and Energy suspended all scheduled grid maintenance on April 14 to free up capacity. Here's what's happening and what to expect.
Environment and Energy Minister Inés Manzano announced leadership changes at both CNEL (the national distribution utility) and CENACE (the grid operator) this week after widespread blackouts and what she called 'slow and inefficient' responses. Juan Carlos Blum — a mechanical engineer with a background in multilateral energy work — is the new CNEL general manager.
Ecuador's Ministry of Environment and Energy publicly labeled a circulating WhatsApp schedule of purported Guayas power cuts as "Falso." The fake document listed outages across Guayaquil, Samborondón, Machala, Daule, and Quito. The real, limited maintenance cuts are confined to two upcoming Sundays at the Dos Cerritos substation.
Ecuador's Minister of Environment and Energy, Inés Manzano, confirmed scheduled power interruptions in Guayas province on two additional Sundays, running from 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM, for maintenance work at the Dos Cerritos substation. Affected areas include Guayaquil, Samborondón, Santa Lucía, Pedro Carbo, and Daule.
In the Ietel neighborhood of north Guayaquil, residents have been without electricity for more than 15 hours since Sunday afternoon. Some families have resorted to sleeping inside their cars with the AC running. The heat wave turned a utility failure into a survival problem.
Power outages rippled through neighborhoods across Guayaquil, Daule, and Samborondón on April 12, with CNEL blaming transformer overloads from extreme AC demand during the heat wave. Residents are reporting four-hour outages or longer.
