QUITO, ECUADOR – It’s 6.30pm in Quito, and Anamary Mazorra Vázquez’sflat has fallen into darkness after weeks of government-mandated power cuts to manage Ecuador’s electricity crisis. She puts clothes away by the light of her phone while her husband, Roberto Vaca,seated on the bed by the window, uses the streetlights to help feed their two-year-old son, who has special needs.
With a newborn and two toddlers to care for, Vázquez’s life has been turned upside down by the blackouts, she says. These past weeks have been particularly challenging, with power cuts from 4am to 11am, then again from 3pm to 10pm, leaving her with only four hours of electricity during the day.
She and her husband have resorted to doing laundry late at night, switching to manual breast pumps, and relying less on refrigerated or frozen foods. They get by in the evenings with a rechargeable light in the kitchen, which lasts long enough for them to cook and eat dinner, while their four-year-old daughter plays in the dark living room.
“This week, the schedule was so harsh,” says Mazorra Vázquez in her kitchen. “I’m not just exhausted, but switched off.”
This sense of fatigue and frustration is widespread across Ecuador as the country – which gets about three-quarters of its electricity from hydropower – goes through one of its worst droughts in decades, and people struggle to adjust to the relentless blackouts.
However, experts argue that drought is not the only cause of Ecuador’s energy crisis. It reflects deeper structural problems within the power sector, with insufficient investment, misguided policy decisions, slow reactions to repeated warnings and a lack of strategies to adapt to extreme weather events.
Since 23 September, Ecuador has been hit by rolling blackouts, which peaked at the beginning of November, with power cuts lasting up to 14 hours a day, mainly during daylight and evening hours, when demand is highest.
As a result, the country’s economy has been severely affected, with small and medium-sized businesses the worst hit. According to the labour ministry, more than 3,500 jobs have been lost due to the blackouts. Industry bodies estimate the power cuts have cost Ecuador’s economy at least $2bn (£1.5bn), with that figure rising daily.
Kimberley Michelle Brown 