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| Venezuela readies “very specific measures” to save energy |
| By Efe October 20, 2009 06:07:00 AM |
| | President Hugo Chavez said that his government is preparing “very specific measures” to save energy in Venezuela.
“We have to launch a campaign for saving energy right now, we’re preparing the whole campaign, we’re evaluating the situation,” Chavez said late Thursday during a Cabinet meeting aired live on state television.
The president gave no details about the plan, or about when it will go into effect or which energy sources will be involved.
He said that the level of Guri Dam, which powers the biggest electricity plant in the country, “has dropped ... 30 percent, because it hardly rained last winter.”
“Besides that, the increase in consumption continues to shoot up, a variable that does not correspond to the real growth of the population or of the economy. A good part of that increase is because of waste,” the president said.
Venezuela has been affected in the last 18 months by at least six major power outages, the most recent in September, due to a system that cannot keep up with the demand, according to government officials.
Venezuela’s electricity service has been entirely in the hands of the state since February 2007, when Electricidad de Caracas, which supplies almost the entire capital city and surrounding areas, and another three small regional electric companies were nationalized by the Chavez government.
The opposition party Un Nuevo Tiempo accused the government of managing the electric service in a “negligent” manner, with the argument that in the last 10 years it has announced the construction of “29 plants for the distribution of electricity and has only built five, and these are operating at only half their capacity.”
Chavez announced on Aug. 16 the approval of $1.28 billion for the development of electricity works and projects, as well as for paying the wages of workers in the sector.
In May, the Venezuelan president said that his government planned to invest some $20 billion over the next five years to increase the electricity supply by 10,000 MW.
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