POWER June 2016 - 10

Venezuela Faces
Existential Power Troubles
Oil-rich Venezuela is gripped by a power
crisis so debilitating that the government
has instituted four-hour daily blackouts
across most of the country, forced hotels
and malls to generate their own power,
and required heavy industries to slash
power usage by 20%. In desperation, the
government also closed the entire country
for five days during the Easter holidays in
March, reduced the public sector workweek
to two days, declared that every Friday
will be a national holiday, and lately, even
ordered citizens to set clocks half-an-hour
ahead to save power. But these measures
have come with consequences: Power cuts
have incited riots and looting in the country's
second-largest city, Maracaibo, and
the crisis has emboldened an opposition
movement that is seeking a referendum
to oust President Nicolás Maduro, whose
term ends in 2019.
The government blames the crippling
power shortages on a severe drought-
the worst in 40 years-a result of the El
Niño weather phenomenon. Particularly
affected is the 10.2-GW Simon Bolivar
hydroelectric facility, the world's fourth
largest, which reaps energy from the
now-withered Caroni River via the massive
concrete gravity Guri Dam and on its
own generates about 73% of the country's
power. The Ministry of Electrical
Energy said in March that the Guri Reservoir's
water levels had fallen to 244.9
meters (m) above sea level and warned
that the dam could reach a " collapse
zone " if water levels fall below 240 m
(Figure 1). Such low levels could jeopardize
the operational safety of the Simon
Bolivar plant's turbines, it said. Two of
the plant's 20 turbines have already been
shut down owing to equipment trouble,
and at least six more will need to idle if
reservoir levels drop. Desperation in high
gear, state power corporation Corpoelec
this April began dredging work-using
heavy machinery and laborers with picks
and shovels-to funnel " vital liquid " to
the turbines.
Corpoelec-an entity created in
2007 through the merger of 10 stateowned
and six privately owned power
companies-has also pegged the crisis
on shortages of natural gas and diesel
supply to its newer plants, owing to financial
delays, as well as to deficiencies
of materials like steel pipe, pumps, compressors,
and other imported equipment,
the electricity ministry told Argus Media
in early April.
But these official explanations have
not satisfied the regime's critics. Maduro's
political opponents deny that the
crisis is caused solely by the drought,
pointing instead to the administration's
mismanagement and imposition of price
1. Of oil and water. With more than a third of its total power supply in jeopardy from low
water levels and equipment troubles, Venezuela is grappling with a power crisis that has put
its strategic oil operations at risk. A particular worry is that water levels at the Guri Reservoir
will drop below the critical level of 240 meters above sea level, forcing the state-owned power
company to shut down critically needed turbines at its 10.2-GW Simon Bolivar complex on the
lower Caroni River. Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/Enrique Rodriguez Bencomo
and currency controls, which they say
pushed the country with the world's largest
oil reserves over an economic brink
in 2013. Other experts point to nearly 15
years of blatant neglect of Venezuela's
power system. The socialist government
hasn't added enough capacity since 2000
to slake soaring power demand, and the
country has endured periodic blackouts
since at least 2009, they note.
In 2010, a sudden demand spike during
another drought brought the country's
power system to the brink of collapse. As
POWER then reported, the situation was
exacerbated by neglect and corruption
at many of the state's power facilities,
including at the 2-GW oil- and gas-fired
Planta Centro on the Carabobo state coast
(which was barely operating at 273 MW).
In 2011, the government again declared
an emergency in the power sector, citing
a lack of investments. And in 2013, just
months after the death of its former, fiery
president, Hugo Chavez, a failure in one
of the national grid's transmission lines
cut power to nearly half of the country,
including much of the capital, Caracas.
While Maduro, then newly elected, suggested
the failure had been caused by
sabotage and blamed opposition groups,
an energy ministry official admitted to a
television station that the failures were
grid-related.
The current crisis is deeper than earlier
episodes because it is accompanied by the
brutal economic wallop of plunging prices
for oil, the country's main export. But the
neglect is reportedly still rampant. As Venezuelan
daily El Nacional reported this February,
Corpoelec workers from seven states
protested outside the company's headquarters
because, among other reasons, about
8.1 GW of the company's 17.6 GW capacity
was out of commission as a result of equipment
breakdowns. Significantly, Planta
Centro hasn't generated power since December
2015, the workers said. Corpoelec
said it is doing everything it can to repair
the plants with help from Cuban power experts
and the Venezuelan army and navy. It
has also redoubled efforts to complete repairs
at the gas-fired 1.43-GW Termozulia
complex near Maracaibo, and at least one
new plant, a Chinese-built turnkey 600MW
gas- and diesel-fired complex adjacent
to Planta Centro, should start operations
by mid-2016, Corpoelec chief Luis Motta
Dominguez said in early April.
8
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POWER June 2016

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