Heat wave and power outages hit the population hard

Reports of frequent blackouts for long hours intensified yesterday from different areas of Greater Santo Domingo, whose residents reported power outages of up to 10 hours.

On Thursday, five generating plants were unavailable in the system due to fuel management, including Punta Catalina 1, and three due to internal causes, according to the report of the SENI Coordinating Body.

On Friday, Punta Catalina unit 1 was available but only contributed 80 megawatts to the system out of an installed capacity of 362 MW.

Since last Tuesday, residents of Sabana Perdida, Pantoja, Los Guaricanos, Gazcue, Marbella II (Las Américas), and other sectors have reported power outages of up to 10 and 12 hours a day in Sabana Perdida, Villa Mella, Pantoja, Guaricano and other sectors.

“In Gazcue, the power was not on, but from a few days ago, it went out almost every day, and so they have been intensifying,” responded young Ernesto Chavez, who lives on Cervantes Street in the sector and who points out that “with these blackouts it is unbearable to endure the heat that it is getting.”

Julia Rodríguez, who also lives in Gazcue, corroborated what Chávez said and added that sometimes the energy takes a long time to arrive.

Community leader Xiomara Peralta also complained about the string of blackouts felt along the kilometers of the Las Americas highway in Santo Domingo East.

“The blackouts have returned on an ordinary basis. Sometimes it goes all night long and sometimes a large part of the night. Also during the day it goes out, although less frequently. During the day once and at night sometimes twice,” Peralta told the Listín Diario.

He pointed out that this makes it difficult for people to rest and fulfill their academic commitments since computers and cell phones are downloaded, and it is impossible to perform the tasks.

Demand management

When summer arrives and especially in times when the country is affected by the Sahara Dust, the heat “squeezes” and the demand for electric energy increases, which provokes an increase of blackouts as a result of the deficit that the distribution companies carry, which obliges the electricity distribution companies to apply what they call “Demand Management,” which is nothing more than the planning of the blackouts, taking into account the total of energy that they buy from the generators, the losses and the demand of their users.