Electricity shutdowns, and tree cutting
From Villa Hermosa, La Romana...
We have power weekdays (obviously subject to other 'outs' when there are incidents somewhere on the circuit)...usually 0100 to 0930 or earlier, and from maybe 1430 to 1900. weekends are different...sometimes no power all day sometimes only very early such as 0200 to 0830 and maybe again at 1200 for an hour...going to the beach seems like a good idea.!
So we're used to the limitations...and it's hard when you commute to and from Santo Domingo...coming home to a 'mains-dead' house. At weekends we're always painfully aware of our washing/ironing situation and whether we've got water AND power to pump into and out of cisterna.
Vegetation in the proximity of the live,open, overhead conductors needs pruning, cutting or felling and sometimes it is only safe to do this when the vegetation is "category 1" and burning-off on the cables...by shutting down sections of High-voltage feeders and whole low-voltage circuits...and for this work we know that here we probably won't get any warning...but it would be great if when "rationing" our normal supply...the power distribution company would promulgate for say, the week or fortnight ahead the proposed 'outages'.
Now I realise that there is the aspect of reimbursement for 'shut-down minutes' to consumers...as there is in other countries...perhaps that's why they don't wish to forewarn us...but it would be much more civilised. But hey I also did not come here expecting it to be the same as England...so we'll quietly see how the situation progresses and continue to use and improve our 'inverso'. (Our wish-list includes a gas/electric cooler and a generator!)