Congestion and outages rise
Peru’s interconnected electricity system recorded 102.83 hours of transmission congestion in September, up from 9.55 hours in the same month of 2025, according to COES figures reported by Gestión. The 500-kilovolt Carabayllo-Chimbote line, which transports electricity from central Peru toward northern regions, accounted for 63.48 hours of September’s congestion. The system also registered 66 hours in July and 41.27 hours in August.
Osinergmin monitoring cited by Gestión recorded 158.7 accumulated hours of outages during 2026 at the Chavimochic special project in La Libertad, compared with 33.97 hours in 2025. Gestión reported that interruptions were affecting areas with agro-export and agro-industrial operations as well as household customers served by regional distributors.
The congestion has increased the need for local thermal generation, including plants that use diesel. COES data reported by Gestión put diesel-fired production from January through September at 772.30 gigawatt-hours, an increase of 1,412% from the corresponding period. Nilton Olazábal, president of Pecier and general manager of Grupo Distriluz, told El Comercio Peru that diesel generation is more expensive than electricity supplied through the interconnected system.
Transmission expansion remains pending
Olazábal said limited transmission capacity was creating congestion for northern electricity companies. He said ministry officials and COES had coordinated measures to increase the capacity of the existing line without compromising safety, while a planned Huánuco-Celendín transmission line is scheduled for 2029.
Jorge Güimac, ISA Perú’s business development manager and a Pecier vice-president, told Gestión that transmission projects can take as long as eight years to pass from the executive branch to ProInversión, tendering, environmental and social permitting, and construction. He proposed handling some required procedures in parallel rather than sequentially, without removing permit requirements.
Gas-fired expansion is a proposal
Olazábal proposed wider use of natural gas for local electricity generation as a less expensive alternative to diesel. He discussed transporting gas from producing fields in Piura to a dual-fuel plant at Éten, but El Comercio Peru did not identify the proposed pipeline as approved.
He separately said a gas-fired plant at Paita had been built but still had technical matters to resolve before starting operations, while another plant at Sechura remained under construction. These existing developments are distinct from his broader proposal to expand local gas-fired generation in northern Peru.