Residents in Santo Domingo continue to bear the brunt of 12 hour blackouts on most circuits, as the country endures the worse electricity crisis since 1990. Problems with the operation at private generators, aging and badly maintained government plants have worsened the situation. The Listín Diario reported that generation is only about 720,000 kilowatts when demand is over 1.3 million kilowatts. The government promises relief will come when the five 34,000 kilowatt plants, the first two of which are promised to go on line by the end of March, become operational. In total, the turbogas power plants purchased from the French company, GEC Alsthom, and a sixth, capable of producing 100,000 and contracted to Siemens of Germany, will be connected this year. While those add to the supply, the large Itabo power plants are likely to go off line for maintenance. Meanwhile, businesses in the D.R. are holding on to stand-by power generators that are suffering under the stress of prolongued use. The blackouts do not affect major tourism projects, such as those in the East Coast (Bavaro-Punta Cana area), in Las Terrenas and several in the North Coast that are not connected to the CDE electrical grid. In a positive development, Ernest Burri, the former president of Codetel, the largest telecommunication company in the country, announced a pool of private banks would seek to participate in the privatization of the state electrical utility in order to permanently resolve the electricity crisis.
