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Ecuador Electric Power
The period from 1976 to 1985 saw a rapid rise in the demand for
electricity and in the construction of generating facilities.
During the same period, the country switched from primarily oilfired thermal plants to hydroelectric-power generation. In 1986
total generating capacity reached 1,802 megawatts, and the country
produced 5,202 gigawatt-hours of electricity. Although Ecuador had
a larger generating capacity from thermal plants than from
hydroelectric facilities, 70 percent of the electricity produced in
1986 came from hydroelectric sources, because many of the thermal
plants sat idle or underutilized. Completion of three new
hydroelectric complexes under construction in the late 1980s was
expected to allow complete dependence on hydroelectric sources by
1992.
The Amaluza complex on the Paute River near Cuenca offered
Ecuador's largest single source of power. Current from this complex
was carried to Guayaquil and to Quito via a 230-kilovolt
transmission line. Disruptions of these lines caused occasional
blackouts, and to provide for alternate routing, a second 230-
kilovolt line was completed in 1988. Expansion of the grid
continued throughout the early 1980s, until by 1984 more than half
the households nationwide had access to electricity. Access for
urban households considerably exceeded that for rural dwellings,
however.
A government agency, the Ecuadorian Institute of
Electrification (Instituto Ecuatoriano de Electrificación--Inecel),
functioned as the nation's generation and transmission company.
Inecel in turn sold electricity to local distribution companies
over which it exercised some control through majority ownership of
their stock.
Data as of 1989
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