Hydro exports surge as dry season tightens Costa Mar's reserves

The Río Esperanto's flow has dropped to 62 percent of the seasonal average at the Punta Negra monitoring station, the Federal Hydro Authority reported on Wednesday. At the same time, power exports to Oriente Moderno and Tierra Verde have climbed to 34 megawatts—a level not seen since the 2021 drought—leaving Costa Mar's reservoir buffer at 18 days of full consumption. The peninsula's entire grid depends on water falling from the mountains; when the dry season arrives early, as it has this year, the margin between abundance and scarcity narrows to a thread.

The Federal Treasury's push for inter-regional energy sales is sound economics. Meridian has mandated that each region maximize export revenue during the dry months, when hydroelectric capacity is most constrained and therefore most valuable on the inter-regional market. But for Costa Mar, the arithmetic is unforgiving. The peninsula cannot store power; it can only store water. Once the reservoirs fall below a critical threshold, the lights dim across Puerto Azul and the coastal towns, and the eco-tourism season—already fragile—collapses.

Governor Solomon Adeyemi convened the Marine Ministry and the Hydro Authority on Thursday to review contingency protocols. The question now is whether the federal government will ease its export targets before the rainy season fails to arrive on schedule, or whether Costa Mar will face rotating blackouts for the first time since 2019.