El Caribe reports that the continuing 14-hour long blackouts that are hitting areas in every part of the country are not easily solved. The energy deficit over the weekend reached 800MW – or about 50% of total demand. Yesterday, the generator Macoris I entered the grid with 100MW of energy. According to company-supplied information, Ede-Norte, Ede-Sur, Ede-Este and the CDEEE owe the power generators US$400 million. The government, however, is far behind in its payments to the distributors, with arrears having reached RD$2 billion since the creation of the compensation fund that was designed to avoid large increases in the electricity rates. Ede-Este is owed RD$800 million of that money. Last week, Itabo shut down and Ege-Haina warned that if there were no resources from the distributors, it would shut down during the first days of February.