Energy
Igor Gavidia, the head of the National Center for Electric Power Delivery (CNDC), Ministry of Electric Energy, expects that Venezuela's power service will be "reliable" in 2012, following installation of new thermal power units and revamping of power equipment in the second half of the year.

Gavidia made an assessment of the outages occurred on Monday, which disrupted power supply in most of the country. He highlighted that while power supply is back to normal and excess demand has eased, as a result of better weather conditions on Wednesday, partial power rationing remains in place in some Venezuelan regions.

He added that the power grid is still hit by "weak spots in power generation. There are plans to streamline equipment that are currently out of service and put them back in service in the short term." There are also plans "to increase thermal power production, because this is the major issue" behind power outages.

Gavidia stressed that the National Electricity System (SEN) has "a great power generation" capacity at the Guri Dam and the rest of the hydroelectric plants installed in the Lower Caroní. However, "all that electric power can not be transferred to the electric transmission corridor. We need the support provided by thermal power plants," he added.

Translated by Gerardo Cárdenas

Mariela León
EL UNIVERSAL