By the way, after months of stable electricity, we're losing it for 2 hours or more every day but Sunday. I think they're attempting to work on it but I don't know if they're accomplishing anything.
From my understanding, the Punta Catalina power plant near Bani was built by the previous government and added to the electricity system. With that addition, the system was much more stable. This plant runs on coal (not the normal coal, but a special version tailor to the plant and it doesn't pollutes as much as traditional coal -though that was a media fiasco where they made people believe this was the normal coal-.) Now get this. The current government is full of people without a brain. Not everybody, but many, way too many. It was known from the start of the year that new coal needed to be purchased to supply Punta Catalina. This power plant is well built and has a special place for reserves. That way if for any reason enough coal can't be purchased on time, part of the reserve is used in the mean time and the electricity supply remains stable to the customer. Well, they used the reserve as if it was anything but a reserve and then they were shocked that they ran out of coal. Yes, you read that right. Once they ran out, the power plant went out of service and that's when the blackouts returned. Now the government is in the process of buying new coal that should had been bought at the beginning of the year. This coal needs to be imported. The price of coal has gone up since then, so they will have to spend more money than if they would've bought at the beginning of the year. Until the coal arrives, that plant will be out of service and the blackouts and lower voltage will continue in many places.
They are also "researching" to see if it can be converted to a natural gas power plant. That means that if it can, it will be out of service again until the conversion is complete.
To add salt to your injury, EDEEste is the worst affected of all the EDE's with the greatest loss.
