The national transmission system (Sistema Interconectado Nacional, SIN) is composed by four interconnected regional transmission systems operated by EDELCA, CADAFE, EDC and ENELVEN-ENELCO. Oficina de Operación del Sistema Interconectado (OPSIS), jointly owned by the four vertical integrated electric companies, operate the SIN under an RTPA[clarification needed] regime.[15]
On Monday, October 15, an event called "Venezuela: A Productive Power" was held which brought together the National Executive with the governors and mayors of the country. According to what was said, the purpose of this event was to consolidate strategic development plans for the regions. Among the featured announcements was the creation of a revolving fund of 20 million Petros for the financing of projects.
The initiative is plausible, especially because it seeks to systematize plans which have already been made – or at least announced – in an isolated way. This systematization within the overall framework of the [Government’s] Plan for Economic Recovery, Growth and Prosperity [which includes recent macro reforms, savings plans, and the launch of a cryptocurrency, the Petro] – is something new, as of course is the use of Petros, despite these not being in circulation still.
However, ironically, much of the country could not follow the event because they were in the midst of another power outage. It is almost impossible to keep track of or tally our power cuts, because while those of great magnitude are not things of everyday occurrence, they are becoming more frequent.
So complex is the problem that, although it has gone somewhat unnoticed, the Professional Baseball League agreed to change the schedules of games this season, which is just beginning. Thus, we have the case of games that start at 2pm [instead of traditional evening starts] as they anticipate that should the electricity in the stadiums fail, the games would still be able to continue by sunlight.
But what does this problem have to do with the aforementioned event, with the idea of turning our country into a productive power and with the national executive''s Plan for Economic Recovery, Growth and Prosperity, or with [economic] stability? Plenty.
To put it simply, when you address economic growth and development, you have to take into account the existence of a limiting factor that is not strictly economic, but without which the economy literally “doesn''t start": electricity.
It is the case that even if all conventional and existing economic restrictions and problems were solved (stabilizing the exchange rate, a torrent of investments, the end of the blockade, etc.), we will not be able to advance without solving the electrical problem.
What we are pointing to is this: the electrical problem must no longer be seen simply as a problem of social discontent, of which there is already plenty, but must start to be viewed as an economic problem. In our view, electrical supply is one of the two greatest constraints that we suffer from today, constraints not only on growth –which is too much to talk about right now –but on the "simple" stabilization of the economy.
As long as [state oil firm] PDVSA is not re-activated and levels of oil production restored, everything else risks imminent short-term wreckage due to the lack of funding. It is also the case with the national electrical system: as long as this does not recover, it will not be possible grow, develop or prosper.
In 2014, when the last development projection of the National Electrical System (PDSEN) was published, the data offered was the following: the Total Time of Interruptions (TTI), which is the number of hours a person spends without electricity at the end of a year for reasons attributable to service providers was, as a continental average, 7 hours. In our case, however, that number was 24.96 hours. Already in 2013 – the year that the PDSEN numbers correspond to – we had 3.5 times more hours without electrical service than our regional peers.
The causes are explained in the same PDSEN report: for 2013, the total energy demand was 18,689 MW. Whilst the installed generation capacity of the national electric grid (SEN) was 27,496 MW, much of this installed capacity represented a token offer; due to problems within the generator system, the real supply was 18,715 MW. If to these problems we add those at the level of distribution, we start to get a picture of a quite fragile system, in which any slight alteration will cause a breakdown in the provision of the service at some point.
Now, what is today’s reality? Since there is no official published data, it is impossible to know for certain what the current reality of the SEN is. However, it seems obvious that it is not better than then: not only have the PDSEN goals not been met, but we have also gone backwards (the current Total Time of Interruptions, for example, may perfectly well be twice that of 2013).
In research conducted by consulting sources linked to the sector (workers and technicians), we obtained the following data. This is not official data, but given the public dearth of official figures, it is the most that we can hope for, so as to underscore the necessity of quickly tackling solutions to the issue, no longer viewed as a social problem, but as a condition of possibility (or impossibility) for National Executive''s productive economic plans.
According to the sources consulted, the current national electricity demand has contracted since 2012 to 14,000 MW. This is consistent with the fall in the GDP by 35 percent in the period 2012-2017 and projected to be around 50% by the end of 2018.
This fall in demand has many dimensions: it is estimated that 3,000 MW correspond to the contraction of industrial, commercial activity and services. And more or less 1,500 MW to a decrease in household consumption.
In terms of supply, all respondents claim that it has expanded, above all due to the incorporation of thermal plants. However, here is a problem, because even though apparently the current generating capacity is around 30,000 MW (twice the demand), in reality only 13,800 MW are available due to diverse operational problems.
What this means in practical terms is that although demand was significantly reduced, the system did not reach optimum operating levels due to a parallel deterioration of the electrical generation and distribution systems.
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