Electricity Crisis Update

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1. This is a very good discussion of the water measurements at Guri, without any political comments, just the facts.

From http://devilsexcrement.com/2010/03/11/an-update-on-what-is-happening-at-guri-dam/

2. From the Guardian, a UK paper I consider center-left:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/venezuela-energy-crisis-chavez

"An energy crisis has battered Venezuela's economy and President Hugo Chávez's popularity, prompting severe rationing to avert nationwide blackouts and paralysis.

"A recent opinion poll found 62% thought the country's situation was negative and 54% had little or no confidence in Chávez. Almost 60% disapproved of the government's handling of the crisis. Critics say the drought would not have been so damaging had there been more investment in power plants."

3. My own ideas:

The people in charge are not experienced enough to understand how to react to something like this. Their incompetence put the country in a crisis, but it's possible to escape if hard measures are taken now, before the whole thing collapses. The measures should be taken now, this week, and they have to include closing whatever has to be closed to avoid a complete collapse. The country can't afford to wait until April or May to find out we have no way out.

And Chavez has it wrong, nobody in the middle class wants to see the country get dark, crime is already a big problem, how can people survive when there are no lights? Or how are they going to eat in a country where so much of the food is imported and kept in refrigerators? What are we supposed to do, survive eating each other? This is a problem for everybody. Maybe the chavistas dread it because they know they won't win elections if this gets really bad, but the everyday man is terrified of the crime rate and starvation, only the lights keep the bad guys from becoming complete savages.

[protocol rv]

1. Good set of graphs explain what's going on in detail

This seems to have been done by an investor in the US:

http://www.firstenercastfinancial.com/forums/crude-oil/657-venezuelan-drama.html

[protocol rv]

2. 12 meters left at Guri, need more rationing to avoid collapse

This report is from Monday. At the current rate, 15 cm per day, by Friday it is below 252 meters above sea level, or 12 meters, or 80 days above collapse - if the rate stays constant. Need more rationing to make it until it starts raining hard.

[protocol rv]

3. Apparently they plan to operate the plant in the high risk zone

Today's papers report the government now plans to continue to run the hydropower generators when the water level reaches below 240 meters. According to what I read, the 240 meter mark was set to avoid having air introduced into the turbines, because this can lead to serious structural loads and destroy the generators. The water level today has gone below the 12 meter mark, so we have less than 12 weeks to see if these guys are right.

At least now we know they realize it's likely the 240 meter "collapse" point will be reached if it doesn't rain hard. The implications for the economy are bad, I expect GDP growth will be a negative 4 to 5 % this year, placing Venezuela near the bottom of the economic growth charts.

[protocol rv]

4. Venezuelan Government to Incorporate Worker’s Proposals to Overcome Electricity Crisis

This is from

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/5203

Caracas, March 18, 2010 (ABN) - Venezuelan vice-president, Elias Jaua, announced a plan on Wednesday to receive proposals by workers in the electrical sector, in order to address the first phase of restructuring and strengthening the national electricity system and a plan of action to overcome the crisis in the sector.

The schedule begins with a phase of assemblies and meetings and consultation promoted by union leaders and worker’s spokespeople around the country, from March 18 until March 26, to compile both strategic and short term proposals.

From March 27 to 31 the discussions and proposals will be compiled and systematized to convert them into general guidelines and specific plans.

Finally, from April 5 to 7, the National Executive will organising working groups in Caracas which will produce the final documents, as Jaua said, "to address the first phase of the restructuring of the national electricity system, speaking from a structural point of view, and the increase, acceleration and relaunch of measures that allow us to finally overcome the electricity emergency that we are experiencing because of the climatic situation.”

----- My comment ------

By April 7, the water level will be about 9 meters above the critical point, at 240 meters above sea level. This means that, unless it starts raining hard, we would be out of water to power the dam by late May or early June. And this means we have to start cutting back hard now - and this will have a serious impact on the economy.

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5. Ali Rodriguez says dam level will reach 241 meters

Today the water level is below 252 meters. Ali Rodriguez, the new Electric Power Minister (we've had four in the last year that I recall), forecasted the minimum level would reach 241 meters on June 1, but would start going up from there due to rain he anticipates will begin to fall soon. I suppose if this fails to materialize we'll have a fifth Electric Power Minister by June.

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6. Here's the Horse's Mouth

This is the official website reporting daily the water and power flows in the Venezuela power sector. For english readers, the last day reported is March 18th. The water level is shown as "Cota Guri", which was 252.07 meters above sea level. The difference from the previous day is 16 cm. This is 1.1 meters per week. By tomorrow, the water level will likely be at around 251 meters.

The operational guidelines indicate the power plant should be shut down when the water level reaches 240 meters above sea level -terefore, were the current rate continue, there would be 10.8 weeks left before the collapse point - from March 18th. This points towards a crisis in early June, unless measures are taken to reduce power consumption, or it starts to rain hard.

Notice the river flow is reported to be 744 m3/sec, but the power plant consumed 5225 m3/sec on that day. Thus the river really has to increase its flow quite a bit. This is possible with rain, but this has been a very dry year. Hopefully it'll rain hard by the end of May. But the rainy season may not fill the reservoir, so this means the crisis will continue anyway.

Also notice it reports the power generated by the 14 large thermal units, four of the fourteen are not operational. This is one of the reasons why the hydropower plant is being pushed hard even though the water level is draining so fast: the thermal plant maintenance has been less than required, and they aren't working as efficiently as they should. The government nationalized the electric power plants several years ago, and did not emphasize maintenance of the existing power generation plants. Thus, even today, with the emergency reaching a very critical level, they can't use all the units.

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7. whoops, forgot to post it

here it is

http://opsis.org.ve/top_diario/frame_eventos.php

But they haven't updated it since March 17th-18th.

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8. Power cut of 2,000 MW required if Guri dam level reaches 240 meters

Power cut of 2,000 MW required if Guri dam level reaches 240 meters

The largest power reduction must be made in central states and Venezuelan Guayana’s Corporation (CVG)

http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/03/22/en_eco_art_power-cut-of-2,000-m_22A3626851.shtml

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17. Opsis Report

From the website published by Opsis:

Water level, 11 meters above critical point. At the current rate, approximately 11 weeks left before a major cut back is required.

Three days of holiday announced for next week to help reduce power consumption. This is a great idea, but I sure wish they had announced it sooner, because now it's hard to make reservations at the beach.

[protocol rv]

11. Crisis Update March 23rd

Water level at the dam is slightly above 251 meters. Consumption was 14 cm in the last 24 hours. At this rate, we have 81 days left - but this is a theory and not reality, as we run out of water the government will cut consumption because we really can't afford to have zero contribution from the dam. If I were the government, I would start closing the aluminum and steel plants, and ask for shopping centers and stores other than food stores to close all day two weekdays of the week.

The Financial Times had an article about the power crisis, published yesterday:

"Venezuelan electricity crisis deepens
By Benedict Mander in Caracas

Published: March 22 2010 23:01 | Last updated: March 22 2010 23:01

A deepening electricity crisis in Venezuela is taking its toll on businesses, as 80 companies were punished on Monday with power cut-offs for 24 hours after failing to comply with a strict rationing plan....The seriousness of the crisis is leading analysts to predict a prolonged recession in Venezuela, which depends on hydroelectricity for over 70 per cent of its power. After a contraction in gross domestic product of 3.3 per cent in 2009, many economists are now expecting a similar performance this year.... President Chávez’s popularity is also suffering, giving his opponents a chance to regain influence in the national assembly elections in September, after boycotting the last legislative elections in 2005. Local pollsters such as Datanalisis put the radical leader’s approval ratings at about 10 percentage points lower than a year ago, with particular dissatisfaction expressed at the government’s handling of the power crisis.

.Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010."

[Downwinder]

9. Strategic planning?

No reason for F-!5s to take out a dam if there is no water in the reservoir.

[protocol rv]

10. Excellent point!

I heard they want to use the land (where the water reservoir used to be) for comunal revolutionary agricultural patriotic units. The Agricultural ministry has recently received advice from Cuban experts, and they are looking for spots to grow New Zealand Kiwis, which they want to use in a revolutionary comunal winery built on the industrial site nationalized by Chavez in Maracaibo. The idea is to demolish the industrial site, previously used for construction and oil field businesses, and put up the kiwi winery. The Kiwi wine is expected to sell very well in Belarus.

But wait, there's more. The kiwi peels will be processed in a comune in the Andes, and the material will be woven into red-dyed mats embroidered with Chavez' face. They'll be sent to the Puerto Rican congressman from New York, who'll sell them to left wing groupies and visitors from Mars, who think anything in red is cool.

I'm going to write them a letter to make sure they don't forget to order a bottle factory from Iran. They'll just have to lie to the Iranians and tell them they're going to be large perfume bottles, because the Iranians, being Muslim fundamentalists, would never cooperate if the bottles are to be used for alcoholic beverages. To pay for the Iranian bottle factory, we're going to have to grow figs or something they like over there.

And to pay for all of this we'll issue bonds, backed by future oil sales. Now all we got to do is figure out how to make Rafael Ramirez produce the oil before it becomes obsolete because a geeky nerd somewhere invented a bacterium to manufacture biodiesel using garbage feedstock.

[Downwinder]

12. Then, I suggest that while there is still light, you go out and procure

a US flag that you can wave at the troops when they arrive.

[protocol rv]

13. Which US troops?

There's no need for US troops. We're having elections soon, and I believe the opposition will win at least 40 % of the seats in the National Assembly.

[Downwinder]

14. No sooner than the elections were in Honduras. And they had

better than 40%.

It is questionable that just a regime change would do enough damage to the infrastructure, besides you already had your chance with the coup, and failed.

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15. Electricity Minister Asks for resignation of all Corpoelec Officials

Sorry, but all I can find is in Spanish. It says the Minister asked for everybody in a management or responsible position to quite the electric power company.

El ministro de Energía Eléctrica, Alí Rodríguez Araque, solicitó la renuncia de todos los directivos y el personal de confianza de las empresas filiales de la Corporación Eléctrica Nacional.

Según un oficio del despacho de Rodríguez Araque, de fecha 19 de marzo de 2010, es necesaria la dimisión de estos funcionarios "con el fin de que sean ratificados en sus funciones o reorientados a otras áreas laborales".

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16. Guri Downfall from El Universal

It's an ok article

"http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/03/19/en_ing_esp_guri-downfall_19A3602613.shtml

"The Venezuelan government has tried to give people multiple explanations of the upcoming electricity collapse. The menu includes, among others, El Niño climate phenomenon; disinvestment in the electricity area ascribed to the "Fourth Republic" or "sabotage" in powerhouses perpetrated by opposing coupsters, and imperialism.

As a matter of fact, the shock is near at hand and there is not diagnosis of why we get at these extreme events. Nor there is a future project set to free new generations from the ordeal nowadays undergone by the country."

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18. President Chavez inspects the Guri Dam reservoir

"President Hugo Chavez announced Wednesday that all of Holy Week will be a holiday in Venezuela to help save electricity amid the country’s worst drought in decades.

“We’ve decreed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (of next week) to be holidays,” which in addition to Holy Thursday and Good Friday, traditional Holy Week holidays, will add up to five non-working days, Chavez said during an event broadcast on state television.

“We have to save energy. No one should forget to turn off their lights and shut their faucets,” the president said, adding that he plans to inspect conditions at the Guri hydroelectric plant, which meets 70 percent of Venezuelan power needs, in the coming hours."

[protocol rv]

19. The beach is nice, but the economy is going to hurt

If we get more holidays like this. Maybe what they need to do is cut out all the industries in Ciudad Guayana.

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20. Opsis no longer posting Guri data

The website where they show the operational data for the dam is no longer being loaded every day. My guesstimate is the water level is below 251 meters, approaching 250 meters, or 10 meters before collapse, but this is only a guess. I guess we're headed in the same direction as the Soviet Union, where this type of information was considered a state secret.

I've cut and pasted a section from an article from the NY Times to give you a version of what's going on

"On the mainland, in the slums of Caracas as in the elegant homes of bankers and oilmen, the situation is more severe. Electric plants are currently operating well below capacity across Venezuela. Hugo Chávez, the Bolivarian who is the country’s president, declared a state of electrical emergency in early February, telling Venezuelans that a severe drought had slowed the creation of hydroelectric energy to a crawl. His opposition scoffed, pointing to maintenance problems at hydroelectric plants, which provide more than two-thirds of the nation’s electricity, as well as at thermoelectric plants that might run on Venezuela’s plentiful supply of oil. For them, the issue is not weather, but leadership.

A joke about this was posted on Twitter shortly after Mr. Chávez’s announcement of the emergency. “Chávez blames El Niño for affecting our hydropower systems,” read the post, referring to the climate pattern that some say has led to the drought. “But the only one to blame is this niño!” There was a link referring to the word niño, or baby. If you clicked it, the screen filled with a Photoshopped image of Mr. Chávez’s face on a toddler’s body, having a tantrum atop a tricycle. (Twitter, Mr. Chávez declared, is “a tool of terror.”)

Meanwhile, darkness could come at any time, elevators stopping between floors two and three, computers snapping off in schools full of children, street lights flickering on a choked city avenue. There are more than three million people in and around Caracas, living cheek-by-jowl in the mountains that rise up from the coast. “Long live Chávez!” went the ironic cry there when the president asked Venezuelans to restrict their shower time to three minutes in order to save water. “Welcome to Cuba!”

-----

This is a so so article, but I thought the point about Chavez calling Twitter a tool of terror was pretty funny.

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21. Aerial View of the Guri Reservoir

Taken Feb 2010 by Carmelo Morales

http://picasaweb.google.com/nomarmora/FotosDelGuri#5438126852434163970

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22. Government beginning to understand they can't stop collapse

I read an article this morning, which tells me government authorities have begun to realize their plans to install new powerplants isn't going to stop the electric power collapse caused by the falling Guri dam levels.

I've discussed in the past how the government is riddled with incompetents, and this of course applies to the two or three previous energy ministers, as well as Jaua and the Cuban they sent us suposedly to tell us how to fix the problem. The key thing they missed was their tendency to make promises on which they never deliver. In this case, they made a lot of noise about all the plants they would have ready. I heard Rafael Ramirez tell Chavez in Alo Presidente how he would have all these new plants ready, with one of them ready by March 31st. Well, here's the end of March, no plant, and I bet Rafael's testicles are getting smaller and smaller, and Chavez is getting madder and madder. But still no power plants are ready, and the water level keeps dropping. Chavez should have known better by now, Ramirez can't deliver on anything, so why expect he would deliver on sufficient power plant capacity when he couldn't even get a simple tender arranged without a one year delay?

I had mentioned it seemed to me their measures, taken a few weeks ago, where half-baked and not enough. And so it is. Now they are going to wait until this brand spanking new 9 day extended holiday Chavez gave us, to start serious cuts. But by now it's not going to be enough. They will have to cut so hard, they will kill the national economy, which is weak as it is. And I don't think the people in the barrios are going to be too happy. To make matters worse, the money from oil is drying up, they can't increase production, and the multinational oil companies they thought will come to save the day are sitting on the fence, watching us like vultures, to make sure we're dead before they come down to pick over our corpses. Damn them all.

http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/p_contenido.php?q=nodo/130181/Regiones/Extenderán-cortes-de-electricidad-en-el-interior-después-del-asueto

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23. Website with interesting graphs

This guy has been getting the data and plotting it to predict when the electric power will collapse:

http://energyevidence.com/Oil/supplyVenezuela.aspx

The devils excrement website has a prediction (by Moses), prepared using a fairly complex math model, which predicts the following levels:

1-Abr-10 249,6

15-Abr-10 247,2

1-May-10 244,2

15-May-10 241,3

22-May-10 239,8

According to Edelca, the people responsible for operating the power plant, the safe limit is 240 meters. However, government authorities have said they may run the plant even if the water reaches below 240 meters.

All of these predictions are just indicators, because there are two very important variables:

1. Rain
2. Government rationing. I assume as they see the water level drop, they'll get really serious about power cuts.

Just in case, if I were planning a visit to Venezuela, I would bring a flashlight, and one of those wilderness water filters, because we may end up in the dark with no water very soon.

[protocol rv]

24. Guri Level at 250 meters?

Hard to tell, the government agency site (opsis) no longer posts the information, and the media is silent. It seems the water level is now a state secret? The predicted level for today is about 250.2 meters by the end of the day, or about 10 weeks before the system collapses - if consumption were to stay at the same rate.

But as we have seen, the government has begun to take more radical measures. Realizing their claims to have new powerplants ready wasn't going to be realized, they gave us this week as a holiday - everything but essential services is closed. This should help reduce pollution in the city, which has been really bad due to the forest fires.

The economic impact of the full holiday is being debated. I don't think it'll be that bad because this is week when a lot of people take a holiday anyway. But if this keeps up, the impact will definitely be felt. I think the resignation of the PSUV Vice President yesterday is a sign many party members are starting to realize they may have bet on the wrong side, and are leaving the sinking ship.

[protocol rv]

28. It's not raining and the water level should be below 250 meters

The weather report to date shows very little rain, and there's no significant rain predicted until the middle of next week, when the prediction is for a small amount of rain - not enough to matter. The water level isn't being reported anymore (not anywhere i can find), but the Devil's Excrement has tables prepared by extrapolating the trend observed, and it is likely the water level is below 250 meters. This would leave us until about May 24 until the water in the reservoir reaches the "collapse" point of 240 meters above sea level.

Maybe they'll just declare the country is on holiday until it rains? We'll have electricity, but the economy is going to perform terrible.

[protocol rv]

29. Opsis flashed on this morning at 249,8 meters

The Opsis website hasn't been updated as regularly as in the past, but this morning it was accessible for a short period of time, and reported the level at 249,8 meters. This is about one meter higher than predicted by Tinerfe and Moses at The Devil's Excrement. If the Opsis report is right the long Easter holiday did cut back on water use - the predicted collapse is shift to May 29th, 2010. These are only extrapolations, when the dam water level drops there needs to be more rationing, the collapse is avoided this way.

The following is the Edelca report raising the alarm about the crisis, prepared in December of 2009:

http://www.soberania.org/Informes/Informe_Edelca_Corpoelec_25-12-2009.pdf

This report is in Spanish, but it has very good drawings. As you can see in the graphs, the current rationing program has kept the water level in the "crisis zone" but it seems to be working a little bit. What's more worrisome is that, even if it rains, the water level may not recover to the needed level, and then we'll have the water level begin to drop again when the dry season begins later this year. This means that we will have rationing for a long time, until the new plants the government says they are building are ready.

I don't think this rationing will help the PSUV (communist party initials) do well in the September elections. People are getting tired of this.

[protocol rv]

25. Water flow into Guri reservoir increases

There has been some rain, and the water flow into the reservoir increased to over 900 m3 per second. This is about 20 % of the withdrawal rate we saw the last time the Opsis page was fed data - they've kept it blank for several days, so we don't have the daily report anymore.

The last daily drop reported is from an article here http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=354500&CategoryId=10717
They say the rate is 13 cm per day, which works out to 90 cm per week. The latest estimate for water level was 10 meters above collapse, which means at the new reduced rate there's enough water for 11 weeks - if the rains stay as they are and we stay on holidays.

Staying on holiday for 10 weeks may be a good idea. The city has less traffic, there's less pollution, and because everybody is at the beach sun tan lotion sales should be going up, crime is down, and we don't have to spend time doing children's science projects.

If they keep managing the power cuts this way, then not only do we get to stay on holiday for a long time, it probably leads to a happier crowd. We need to have entertainment for the masses. And let's not limit it to the Polar beer dancing girl stuff. We need Shakira and Metallica, that should be enough circus to keep the crowd appeased for a while. When I think of it, Chavez should start his own act "Los Ponchao", wich Elias Jaua playing the drums, Rafael Ramirez the electric guitar, and Celia Flores doing Madonna with a tambourine. And well, we could have Fidel Castro come in as a guest star and sing "Besame Mucho".

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26. Venezuela's Thermal Generating Plants "beyond repair"

A new report reveals maintenance at the existing thermoelectric plants has been so poor, they are beyond repair. The reports discusses conditions at the major plants, in fairly good detail, and shows they are falling apart. Maintenance has been terrible during the Chavez administration, and apparently they're barely working. The lack of capacity in these plants is more to blame for the forthcoming collapse of the electric power system, rather than the dry season as they've been telling us. The report also mentions that, given the poor shape of the thermal plants, and the lack of rain during the dry spell, they should have started rationing electricity as far back as May 2009, but they didn't.

The referenced article is in Spanish

http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/p_contenido.php?q=nodo/130443/Economía/Deterioro-de-Planta-Centro-hace-inviable-su-recuperación

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27. Venezuela will pay $600 million to General Electric

Venezuela is purchasing two power generation plants from General Electric, for which it's paying "$500 or $600 million". I guess they're so desperate, they don't even have a cost estimate for these plants.

Quote from the newspaper article in Spanish

"El ministro de Empresas Básicas y Minería, Rodolfo Sanz, dijo a la prensa que el gobierno venezolano realizará una inversión de "cerca 500, 600 millones de dólares'' para adquirir dos plantas y equipos de General Electric que tienen una capacidad total de generación de 880 megavatios, reseñó AP."

http://www.eluniversal.com/2010/03/31/eco_ava_venezuela-pagara-600_31A3674451.shtml

Chavez has created a ton of ministries, we even have the Minister for Potholes, and the Minister for Blackouts (also known as the Electricity Minister).

[protocol rv]

30. Guri dam level at around 249,5 meters

A Venezuelan paper reports the Guri dam level for Sunday here

http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/p_contenido.php?q=nodo/131380/Economía/Racionamiento-en-Semana-Santa-no-impidió-descenso-del-Guri

Extrapolating tenendies we can guess the level this morning is slightly below 249,5 meters. The rate of descent is about 13 cm per day. But it is raining now. So the question is whether the rain can begin to slow down the descent before it reaches 240 meters. Which means we should definitely avoid the collapse. We will just have to live with rationing and power cuts.

Meanwhile, the government announced they had arrested 8 Colombians for spying on the national electricity grid. There were comments saying this was proof there was a campaign to sabotage the national electric system. This is an interesting subject, because there was a report that a thermo electric plant had a fire and is not generating any electricity. The question is, is it Colombians, or is it Venezuelans? Or is it incompetence?

[protocol rv]

31. Large Thermal Generation Plant out of service

Planta Centro, a 2000 MW thermal generation plant located towards the North-Central part of the country was out of action the last two days, reports in the Venezuelan press say the plant has serious maintenance problems, and quotes from a union representative were that "sure hope they give us the foreign currency to buy the spare parts we need".

http://www.eluniversal.com/2010/04/07/eco_art_sin-operar-unidades_1824186.shtml

http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/p_contenido.php?q=nodo/131560/Economía/Planta-Centro-estuvo-paralizada-dos-días-por-fallas-técnicas

I sure hope they give these guys the money to buy the spare parts, rather than spend it buying a refinery in Santo Domingo.

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32. Edelca President: 2 years to Recover Guri Reservoir Levels

Edelca's President Igor Gavidia, explained the Guri reservoir is at 249,26 metros above sea level, "it has been descending but much slower due to rationing and some of the rain we've had"

He also explained it will take at least two years to recover its level, if it rains hard. He also added, we're now 9 meters above the critical level, so it looks like it didn't stop, and it won't stop.

Regarding the Thermoelectric Planta Centro, he said that 5 machines had never been put in service completely, and that one had stopped recently "due to sabotage" (I guess it must have been the Colombian spies who ran around with their military carnets in their pockets).

Gavidia admitted the plant is completely shut down, but soon it will be started and will produce 60 MW, and may eventually go up to 300 MW.

[protocol rv]

33. First Enercast Financial's Forecast seems validated

Check this website

http://www.firstenercastfinancial.com/forums/crude-oil/657-venezuelan-drama.html

The plot prepared by "Venezuelan Drama" in late January seems to have predicted actual conditions fairly well. It's on track. Notice the way the curve trends down to an end point in late May.

This, of course, is purely theoretical. As stated by Edelca's president, they won't let it get that low, if it doesn't rain hard (it's already raining a bit), then they will ration electricity even more, but the level just can't be allowed to go below 240 meters. Period.

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34. Chavez Extends State of Emergency another 60 days

The new state of emergency decree will be issued in the National Gazette on April 9.

http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/p_contenido.php?q=nodo/131948/Economía/Chávez-anuncia-emergencia-eléctrica-por-60-días-más

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35. Latest Guri Reservoir Projection

http://energyevidence.com/Oil/supplyVenezuela.aspx

The latest projection from this site shows the complete collapse will be avoided, with the lowest water level on June 18th. This has built in a set of assumptions, including the amount of rain, as well as plants being put on line as scheduled. This scheduling is one of the big unknowns, as is plant downtime. For example, Planta Centro has been reported to be off line (something the government seems to be preparing to blame on Colombian saboteurs?). In the end, as mentioned in earlier posts, there is the ability to ration electricity as much as necessary to avoid the system's total collapse. As I predicted, the collapse point will not be reached unless there's a major breakdown somewhere in the system.

Such a breakdown, unfortunately, is possible. These are very large and delicate machines, and maintenance has been neglected. We already have Planta Centro in serious trouble. If another major piece of equipment fails somewhere (and I suspect they'll attribute it to sabotage), then the curve dips and there will be even harsher rationing. But collapse is always avoided by reducing consumption to whatever is needed.

The curve shown in the website above also shows we move towards recovery as the rain fills the reservoir. But it seems the level has dropped so much, we won't be out of trouble until the end of the rainy season in 2011. This means we'll have an economy hobbled by power cuts for a long time.

[protocol rv]

36. April 9: Looks like collapse may be avoided

In spite of the loss of Planta Centro's generators, and the failure to add significant new capacity, the latest data shows the full system collapse will be avoided. National electricity consumption has been cut by 20 % via rationing and rolling blackouts. A big contributing factor has been the near shutdown of the basic industries on the Orinoco river (the steel and aluminum plants). This will reduce national income and hurt the local economy in that area, but it does reduce power demand considerably.

The Guri reservoir level today is around 249 meters, 9 meters above the collapse point. It will continue to drop but it should reach a minimum of 242 meters in June, then begin to go up slightly as the rain overcomes the withdrawals.

The only worry now is whether it will indeed rain as expected for a normal rainy season, and whether we will have additional system failures - we have to recall the system has been poorly maintained and there are failures which are now attributed to sabotage. This is probably putting a lot of stress on the power plant workers, and stressful working conditions can lead to lower performance. Which means we are still facing a dangerous situation.

There's another factor, the government is counting on the construction of new power plants, many of them are designed to consume diesel, about 100 thousand barrels per day according to the oil minister Ramirez. Which means the nation will be losing about $9 million per day in export earnings, that's $270 million per month or $3,2 billion per year. And that's a lot of money for a weak economy. They should have built natural gas-powered plants only.

[protocol rv]

37. Telesur - Chavez insinuates electric plant failures caused by counter-revolutionaries

In this speech segment President Chavez attributes some electricity supply problems to "counter-revolutionaries". This is a term used a lot by the Cubans. The insinuation is that electric company managers are sabotaging the plants, and this is why they are failing so much.

http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/9/4/2010/6158/tenemos-que-hacer-la-revolucion-electrica-hugo-chavez/

I guess they're going to find some people to toss in jail. I'm glad I don't work in the power sector. What will happen when PDVSA's production declines to 2 million barrels per day? Are they going to start putting PDVSA managers in jail?

[protocol rv]

38. It's raining!

It's raining! The water drop rate is down to 7 cm per day. This means the river flow is still below the water being used to generate electricity, but the river is starting to offset about half the water being used. Now all we have to do is wait for the river to increase its flow above the consumption rate, which should happen any time, and the reservoir will begin to fill up.

As it turns out, in 2003 I believe the level dropped as low as 244 meters, I think this year it will be similar. The difference is today we use more electricity, and there's a race to put on new power plants before it stops raining, because if it does and we don't have those power plants ready then we'll just repeat the crisis over and over.

[protocol rv]

39. Water level seems to be stabilizing

The latest i hear is the water level is stabilizing at around 248 meters.