Location of powerhouses hinders adequate power supply, expert says

The National Electricity Corporation (Corpoelec) implemented on Wednesday a number of special and temporary revolving power rationing cuts in different towns of the states of Aragua (central Venezuela) and Trujillo (western Venezuela).

José Manuel Aller, an energy expert and professor of power generation, said that the government denies that it is implementing a power rationing policy and rather uses the term "load administration plan." The expert said that Venezuelan energy authorities are actually "implementing power cuts," given the erratic performance of the domestic electric grid a situation they have failed to control.

Aller stressed that the government has a generating capacity of about 18,000 megawatts (MW) "that it can not handle" properly because the problem lies "in the location of the power stations."

Power generation units located in the central and western areas of the country do not meet the demand of their regions and imports of energy from Guri hydroelectric plant are required.

"About 2,000 MW of the above-mentioned generation capacity cannot be used because the transmission networks have some limits and do not allow the transmission of electricity," to large consumption centers, he stated. "When those limits have been exceeded... a collapse of the backbone transmission network has occurred," Aller added.