1

How to improve Energy Management in

Ecuador (Apr - 2018)
JUAN CARLOS ENRIQUEZ, D IEGO PUETATE.

The great development and transformation experienced by

Abstract— This paper proposes key strategies to be the
implemented in order to promote an efficient electric energy
management in Ecuador. Firstly, a brief background on local
energy management policies and experiences is initially presented.
Then, considering up-to-date information and bearing in mind
several related studies, some solutions are recommended to design
a successful long-term and sustainable energy administration plan.

Index Terms—Ecuador, energy efficiency, energy management,

policies, renewable.

I. INTRODUCTION

This plan has been prepared taking into account the guidelines
established by the MEER, highlighting the adoption of the
policies and objectives of the National Plan for Good Living 2009
- 2013 and the Sectoral Agenda of the Electric Sector. A key
objective is to ensure energy self-sufficiency, maximizing
the use of renewable resources available in the country.
Indeed, when talking about electricity, The expansion plan is an
integral vision of the country, prioritizing the attention of the
demand, whose includes the growth of consumption, the
incorporation of important charges system, the change in the
energy matrix and the need to interconnect the oil sector with the
System National Transmission.
Nevertheless, all proposed policies and governmental plans on
the energy sector have to be supported on accurate technical
criteria. Additionally, This document details the expansion plan
prepared by CELEC EP through the unit of TRANSELECTRIC
business that guarantees the continuity of the operation of the
transmission network until the end of planning period (2013 -
2022), complying with the requirements established in the
current regulations, allowing the incorporation into the system of
the new defined generation projects and guaranteeing the supply
of electric power to distribution centers.
All the previous exposed criteria will be considered in this study
when recommending attack-lines and strategies that will
promote an improvement on energy management in Ecuador.
II. A SHORT HYSTORY OF THE ELECTRIC
ENERGY SECTOR IN ECUADOR
electricity sector in the decades of 70´s and 80´s, under the
management and promotion of the Ecuadorian Institute of
Electrification (INECEL) was weakened in the 90´s, when the
electricity sector was blocked the access to financial
investment. This situation triggered severe electric rationing in
1995 and 1996 that led the implementation of policies that
prevailed in most South American countries at that time; this is
with a strong focus on private interests for profits.
By 2008, this model, which trusted the development of private
investment on generation, ended its life after reaching a
significant deterioration. The high investment required for
viable large hydroelectric projects carried a high risk in a long
term investment recovery, which could not be addressed by
private actors who just financed only small thermal power
plants. Subsequently, the country faced on 2009 one of the most
severe droughts in history, and so, after some years, the country
again experienced power rationing. This last crisis added to a
new and recently implemented Constitution, helped to create
political will on authorities that finally realized that the energy
sector needs a big change not only in a power generation level
but into all its different components.
Since then, a lot of investment and efforts have been put into
the electric sector for its renovation. Nowadays, proper and
competent strategies are still needed into the sector in order to
accomplish an efficient energy management administration.
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How to improve Energy Management in
Ecuador (Apr - 2018)
JUAN CARLOS ENRIQUEZ, D IEGO PUETATE.

III. A REVIEW OF THE CURRENT SITUATION AT THE experienced during the last two months of 2009 and January of
ELECTRIC ENERGY SECTOR IN ECUADOR 2010, in which electrical energy production and import was
insufficient to meet national demand.
A. Generation and Demand

In this document, the nominal and effective powers of the

generation plants are shown arranged in the continental and
insular territory. The power values are analyzed by type of
system, energy, central, service, company and province.
On 2016, the total energy produced was 27,313.86 GWh, with
the following detail: Hydraulics (15,833.84 GWh), 57.97%;
Thermal (10,867.91 GWh), 39.79%; Biomass (476.52 GWh),
1.74%; Eolics (83.96 GWh), 0.31%; Biogas (12.88 GWh),
0.05% and Photovoltaic (38.75 GWh), 0.14%.
However, not all energy is incorporated into the system
23,680.56 GWh, 86.70% corresponds to the generated in the
SNI, while 3,633.30 GWh, 13.30% corresponds to the energy
of the unincorporated systems.
Additionally, there are international interconnections with
Colombia and Peru:

• With Colombia: two double circuit transmission lines of 212

km length each, linking the Pomasqui substations on the
Ecuadorian side with Jamondino on the Colombian side and
allowing the transfer of up to 500 MW.
• With Peru: a transmission line of 107 km in length, which
connects the Machala substations on the Ecuadorian side with
Zorritos on the Peruvian side and which allows the transfer of
up to 100 MW.
The availability of the existing power generation system is
variable, depending on several factors, such as: hydrology, fuel
availability, maintenance time, equipment life, etc. The energy
produced by hydroelectric means, 88.6% is concentrated in large
power plants: Coca Codo 1500 MW, Paute (1,100 MW), San
Francisco (230 MW), Sopladora (487 MW), Laniado (213 MW),
Mazar (160 MW), Agoyan (156 MW) and Pucara (73 MW) On
the other hand, in the case of the generation of thermal energy,
many internal combustion engines that operate with diesel are
ending their useful life and have a poor efficiency, this is
translates into increasingly higher production costs.
Despite the fact that there has been a significant growth in
thermal facilities in the country, the energy supply is highly
dependent on the hydrological behavior from the rivers that feed
Paute power plant reservoir. This particular has led energy
reserves to keep in values below 10%, setting an operating
condition with high probability of energy rationing. Indeed, as it
can be appreciated on Figure 1, severe service cuts were
Fig. 3. Demand each month from 2015- 2016, taken from
By 2010, from the total generated and imported energy for public
service (17,636.72 GWh) without considering self- generating
producers, the 1.48% was consumed in the auxiliary services
from generation and 3.08% was lost in the power transmission
stage, being available for distribution to public service 16,834.10
GWh. From the previous value, 872 GWh were taken from the
international interconnections.
The public electricity consumption nationwide in 2010,
including large consumers and own consumption of self-
generating companies, was distributed as follows: 5.114GWh
(36.3%) for the residential sector; 2,672 GWh (19%) for
commercial use, 4.417GWh (31.4%) for the industrial sector,
812GWh (5.8%) in public lighting and 1.061GWh (7.5%) for
other types of consumption. Historically, the maximum
requested power demand occurred on December 2010, this was
2,879 MW. The behavior of the national electricity demand in
the peak hours is influenced by the consumption of the
residential sector, mainly due to the use of lighting (49%). The
second largest use in terms of impact at the peak hour is cooling
food (18%). The third most important use was air conditioning
(13%) followed by heating use (8%).
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How to improve Energy Management in
Ecuador (Apr - 2018)
JUAN CARLOS ENRIQUEZ, D IEGO PUETATE.

B. Transmission
The facilities of the Ecuadorian electrical system are facing
a delicate situation at transmission and sub-transmission levels
in distribution as well as operational limitations associated
with operating in conditions of high demand with
consequences such as low voltage profiles at 138 kV and 69
KV. Furthermore, several power transformers are about to
work into overcharge operation, this reflects that the system is
functioning at the limit of safety criteria and reliability.
C. Distribution
The management of the distribution companies has been oriented
to the renovation and modernization of the infrastructure
(electrical, administrative, etc.) with the standards of the
communication technology and the electrical industry.
The service provision was made with the conventional red and for
isolated places it was carried out by unconventional renewable
isolated systems.

The National Electric Transmission System is primary

composed by a 230 kV/AC double ring circuit (1,285 km
double-circuit/556 km simple-circuit) and 138 kV radial lines
(625 km double-circuit/1,093 km simple circuit). These radial
lines derive from the backbone ring circuit and allow to link
power plants with consumption localities.

In 2016, a national novel, the energy losses in the distribution

system reached 12.21%, this is 2690.64 GWh.
evidently it was reduced based on the following actions:
depuration of cadastres
Massive installation of meters
change from open networks to pre-assembled networks (anti-theft)

Fig. 3. National Transmission System,

The SNT, in 2016, has 50 substations and also has 3 mobile

substations, which make up a total of 80 transmission lines that
operate at voltage levels of 500 kV, 230 kV, 138 kV. in 500kv
there are 264 km of simple circuit lines in 138 there are 1342 km
of lines to simple circuit and 791 km of lines to double circuit
and a, 230 kv there are 975 km of lines to simple circuit and 1593
km of lines to double circuit.

Fig. 3. Ecuadorian electric losses per distributor.


How to improve Energy Management in
Ecuador (Apr - 2018)
JUAN CARLOS ENRIQUEZ, D IEGO PUETATE.
D. Economic aspects and planning
The electric sector the tariff or sale price to regulated customers
is the amount that the end user of the electricity service must pay
for the energy they consume to satisfy their needs according to
their consumption patterns and level of tension that the service
is provided .
The following is the multi-year detail of regulated and
unregulated customers of the distribution companies. As can be
seen in TABLE No. 108, a total of 4,924,967 customers were
registered in 2016, representing an increase of 46% (1,553,943
customers) compared to 2007.
Actually, government and authorities, worried for amending
all these weaknesses at the electric sector; are doing a big effort
in order to plan and execute several projects, such as:
1) Construction of big hydroelectric power plants like Coca
Codo Sinclair (1500 MW), Minas-San Jose (276 MW),
Jaramijo (149 MW), Delsi Tanisagua (116 MW) and
others (200 MW). Most of these power plants will be
available by 2015-2016.
2) Plans that try to set losses at transmission and distribution
levels between acceptable values.
3) Feasibility studies for the use of non-conventional
renewable energy sources for electricity production.
4) Programs and incentives for efficient energy consumption
in home and industry.
5) Risk analyzes, economic planning and technical issues
studies at the energy sector between others.
IV. PROPOSED STRATEGIES FOR
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
IMPROVEMENT
As initially mentioned, quite a lot of criteria will have to be
considered to promote real and sustainable progresses at the
energy sector. Technical, economic, environmental and
educational aspects in consumers are inherently dependent
between them and they all working together will improve
power quality and efficiency, the following must be the key
strategies that need to be implemented:
1) At power generation ambit, Ecuador should keep betting
for big hydroelectric power plants as there are vast and
appropriate hydrologic conditions to do this [3]. However,
despite the fact that there are some factors affecting finance
of non-conventional renewable energy projects [7], there
are several benefits of developing these proposals for
present and future sustainability. In addition, according to
[8], there´s a huge potential on the use of these technologies
in Ecuador. The government should provide policy
4
stability and fiscal incentives to private investors such as
subsidies and reduced taxes to these initiatives.
On the other hand, while the country still depends on
thermal generation until new hydroelectric power plants are
ready, old power units on thermal plants need to be
progressively repaired or replaced by more efficient ones.
2) In order to minimize energy losses at transmission and
distribution levels, it´s required to: (i) Implement advanced
metering infrastructure (AMI), distributed systems
advanced communications and smart grid facilities to
collect additional information needed to perform more
detailed analysis and control capability of the system
[9].
(ii) Apply loss-reduction techniques that can be performed on
existing infrastructure and could have a high rate of return for
the investment like phase balancing, power factor correction,
load balancing between feeders/substations, removal of
energized transformers that do not serve load, and voltage
optimization. Utilities will need to evaluate which loss
reduction techniques are applicable on a circuit- by-circuit
basis [9]. (iii) Install Flexible AC Transmission System
(FACTS) devices that allow more efficient utilization of
existing transmission networks as they are able to provide
rapid active and reactive power compensations to power
systems in order to improve voltage profiles, power flow
control and transient stability[10]. (iv) Replace, in a planned
basis, old power transformers with very efficient ones.
3) At the distribution sector, the energy losses percentages
internationally accepted are around 10% [5], so big technical,
administrative and financial efforts are necessary to
gradually achieve this objective. Additionally, an aggressive
plan must be executed to reduce commercial fraud and theft
of energy through activities such as user regularization,
replacement and installation of new energy meters and the
implementation of new consumption readings and billing
methods.
4) It is well known that per-capita electricity demand is been
growing globally, so this is a fundamental aspect in planning
the expansion of electrical systems. However, the
government should encourage efficient use of electric energy
as internationally it´s been concluded that it is possible for
countries to maintain and even improve the quality of life and
economic growth by consuming systematically less amount
of energy [11], especially at home. So, different policies
should aim to optimize the consumption of high demand
sectors like residential, industrial and commercial, which
together represent about 87% of national electricity
consumption [4].
Due to the continuous existence of subsidies for domestic use
of energy, users are having bad consumption habits that
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How to improve Energy Management in
Ecuador (Apr - 2018)
JUAN CARLOS ENRIQUEZ, D IEGO PUETATE.

translate into the use of inefficient appliances and lightning Nacional, Quito, Septiembre 2009
[9] Dugan R., Short T. and Forsten K., “Modeling Energy Efficiency
bulbs. This is why subsidies policies should be reconsidered
Alternatives for Distribution System Power Delivery”, EPRI-USA, CI
and intensive plans and incentives for efficient consumption RED 20th International Conference on Electricity Distribution Prague,
and replacement of old equipment must be stated, mainly in 8-11 June 2009, Paper 1021
cooling food, washing machines and air conditioning [10] I. Valdivieso, “Estudio y aplicación de la Tecnología FACTS al Sistema
devices. Eléctrico Ecuatoriano “, Tesis de Grado Escuela Politécnica Nacional,
Quito, Abril del 2011
For the use of energy for commercial and industrial [11] International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “Informe anual del IAEA
purposes, training forums and conferences need to be held para el 2011”, Available:
at these sectors for encouraging: (i) the use of efficient and http://www.iaea.org/
smart lighting systems, (ii) technological renovation and [12] E. Betancourt, “Estudio y Planteamiento para establecer una tarifa
horaria en el pico del sistema eléctrico en el Ecuador como incentivo de
(iii) proper motor selection and use of electric drives. eficiencia energética”, Tesis de Grado Escuela Politécnica Nacional,
Indeed, some incentives could be applied if power at peak Quito, Junio 2011.
hours is demanded at a different time period [11] in order to
improve load factor as actually it is at 67% [4]. At the public Juan Carlos Enríquez was born in Tulcán, Ecuador, in 1996. He is student
sector, the use of efficient public lightning is the key aspect from Universidad Tecnica del Norte, Ibarra, Ecuador until 2016.
to consider as it counts for 8% of demand at peakhours. Diego Puetate was born in Julio Andrade, Ecuador, in 1993. He is student
So, efficient and/or self-powered lightning devices will have from Universidad Tecnica del Norte, Ibarra, Ecuador until 2016.
to be installed.

V. CONCLUSION
Planning appropriate strategies for the electric sector in a
country is not an easy job as environmental, economical,
human and technical criteria need to be considered
simultaneously. Nevertheless, the sustainable development
criteria will lead the path nations must follow. Indeed, as it has
been mentioned, it is necessary to promote efficient energy
consumption at home and industry as well as the use of
renewable energy sources and proficient managing of fossil
fuels. The Ecuadorian electric system is facing big challenges
that require prompt and consistent actions. Some strategies
have been proposed to improve energy management in
Ecuador based on appropriate technical criteria. However, all
these plans need political will to provide enough economical
and human resources to accomplish the goal of an efficient,
sustainable and environmentally friendly energy sector.

REFERENCES
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[2] The Institution of Engineering and Technology, “War on waste”
www.theiet.org/magazine
[3] Consejo de Nacional de Electrificación (CONELEC), Available:
www.conelec.gob.ec
[4] Transelectric Ecuador,
Available:
www.transelectric.com.ec
[5] Organización Latinoamericana de Energía (OLADE), Available:
http://www.olade.org
[6] Corporación Eléctrica del Ecuador (CELEC), Available:
www.celec.com.ec/
[7] W. Matekenya, “Structuring Renewable Energy Projects to Enhance
Bankability”, Department of Science and Technology, Pretoria
University, South Africa, June 2011.
[8] Roldán P. “Evaluación de las Energías No Renovables Factibles de
Desarrollarse en el Ecuador”. Tesis de Grado Escuela Politécnica