CARACAS, Wednesday September 03, 2008 | Update
A total of 77 forced outages due to failures and emergencies was officially reported only in July (Photo: El Tiempo newspaper)
Economy
After describing the blackout that hit on Monday afternoon
nine Venezuelan states as "a serious incident from an operational
point of view," the president of the National Electric Corporation,
Hipólito Izquierdo, said - from the Venezuelan southern
city of Puerto Ordaz - that the outage was caused by the excessive
reliance of the western electric sector on the National Interconnected
System (SIN).
Besides, Caracas was using that day 1,000 megawatts of the
interconnected system, more than double the normal electricity
availability, because the units at the Josefa Joaquina Sánchez
(Tacoa) plant were out of service.
According to Izquierdo, "we lack the generation capacity
necessary to strike a balance in the Interconnected System
which, whenever such failures occur, would allow the system
to meet the demand by taking electricity from elsewhere in
the country."
12:06 PM.
Politics.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez authorized on Sunday
his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to raise
a reform of the Constitution to seek his indefinite
reelection. "After seeing what is happening and the huge threat
that looms over the Venezuelan people with these fascist sectors,
I say you were right: Hey! Hey! Chávez is here to stay!"
the ruler said.