The Region's Electric Market has “as a common condition” that El Niño affects its operation, due to the low amount of rainwater that reaches the dams, the director of EOR, Nicaraguan René González, told AFP.
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Faced with the lack of rain, according to González, countries sounded “alarms” and some came forward with initiatives to “supply total demand” domestically through purchases in the regional market.
Since the beginning of May, “Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama have taken measures to purchase energy” in order to “save hydroelectric energy for times of greatest demand in the future”, he explained.
This decision “increased the demand for energy” at a regional level and also increased the price paid “to protect its security” and maintain the service without interruptions.
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Honduras is the country most affected in the Central American isthmus by the lack of electricity. Its state-owned company, Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE), has a calendar of service interruptions.
Last Saturday, Honduran President Xiomara Castro recognized the serious situation of electricity supply in her country, where businesspeople predict a drop in GDP for this reason.
“We know that we face (a) serious energy rationing due to the low water level in the dams and the unavailability of thermal plants”, lamented Castro.
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Businesspeople on the north coast of Honduras, the one with the greatest industrial development, say they suffer from blackouts lasting up to eight hours a day. ENEE announced the creation of a public-private interinstitutional commission to “create solutions to the crisis facing the country”, which “is worsened by the severe weather conditions in the region”.
In 2022, with “normal hydrology”, 3.108 gigawatts/hour were delivered, but in 2023, with El Niño, the volume fell to 2.797 gigawatts/hour, a regional decrease of 10%.
In 2013, with an investment of almost 500 million dollars (1,07 billion reais, in values at the time), the Electrical Interconnection System for the Countries of Central America (SIEPAC) was completed, which includes 1.793 km of transmission lines from Guatemala to Panama.
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At the beginning of May, the countries that injected the most electricity into the system were El Salvador, with 132.473 megawatts/hour (MWh); Guatemala, with 56.904, and Panama, with 15.066. Since May 15, Honduras has injected 3.227 MWh.
As the crisis caused by El Niño progresses, Guatemala purchased 22.884 MWh in May; El Salvador, 41.621; Honduras, 9.569; Nicaragua, 48.808; Costa Rica, 51.155; and Panama, 23.571.
El Niño is a phenomenon associated with rising temperatures, greater drought in certain parts of the world and heavy rains in others.
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It last occurred in 2018-2019 and paved the way for a particularly long episode of almost three years of La Niña, which causes opposite effects and in particular a drop in temperatures.
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