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BiggerNationwide blackout: Authorities still do not know the causes of the power outage
Santo Domingo, DR— The Minister of Energy and Mines, Joel Santos, on behalf of the Electricity Cabinet, clarified on Thursday that the version circulated in some media outlets and social networks, which claims that the technical committee had concluded its technical report on the event that occurred in the national electricity grid last Tuesday, is not true.
Any document circulating is a private version, without official endorsement.
Santos indicated that the investigation is ongoing and that, as it is a rigorous inquiry, it must cover all the agents involved, including transmission, distribution, generation, system operation, and technical personnel in the field, as well as all elements of protection of the national electricity grid that could be associated with the event.
“The technical committee will meet again this Friday, the 14th, when it will continue with the detailed review of the information requested from all SENI participants in order to move forward with the preparation of the report,” he emphasized.
He then said: “The rigor of this report is vital to ensure that each event, maneuver, equipment, and protocol is accurately evaluated, so that the final conclusions allow not only to determine the exact origin of the blackout, but also to strengthen the protection and response mechanisms of the national electrical system,” he said.
Minister Santos added that, as established after Wednesday’s meeting, the technical committee continues to work on two priority lines of investigation: verification of compliance with field operating protocols to determine whether the event was associated with human intervention, as well as the compilation and analysis of technical information on the various elements of the electrical system to confirm whether they acted in accordance with established parameters when the failure occurred.
He reiterated that, to date, the technical committee is examining the sequence of events leading to the service interruption and evaluating each protection, piece of equipment, and maneuver involved, in accordance with current regulations.
He recalled that this technical body is made up of representatives from the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the Superintendency of Electricity, the Coordinating Body, the Dominican Electricity Transmission Company (ETED), Electricity Distribution Companies (Edenorte, Edesur, and EDE Este), private generators, and the state generators Punta Catalina and Egehid.
Santos called on the media and the public to pay close attention to official information from the Electricity Cabinet and avoid disseminating unconfirmed reports that could confuse the public.
The blackout
The technical report issued following the general collapse of the national electricity system determined that a “human operational error” caused a “a severe disturbance” in the National Interconnected Electricity System (SENI), resulting in chaos in Greater Santo Domingo and other provinces of the country.
Last Tuesday, at 1:23 p.m., the national electrical system was affected by a “blackout” or general power outage, caused by a failure or malfunction in the 138/69 KV SPMI substation – 138KV SPM-Cumayasa Line, during the manual opening of the blades on the side of the 138 kV SPM-Cumayasa line, causing the paralysis of mass transportation and losses in productive sectors.
Add another why reason folks do not trust the government…
There could be a coverup of what was the cause. However, the country has a culture of people not knowing what happened, saying nothing, even if they did know something. What’s is worst they will blame others without proof. Because there are so many people tied to the grid operation, just a few of them not speaking up or not speaking truthfully breaks the chain of information. It is a behavior that creates a complexity that threatens the course to find cause.
installations anyone ?
i am in boca Chica and daily the power goes out maybe up to 10 times a day every day. sometimes for minutes and sometimes for hours. i speak to the line men and they tell me the reason is they are not getting paid. they say if they say anything to their superiors they will be fired. they say just, they are having problems. how can they have so many problems daily. so the problem starts at the top and goes all the way to the bottom. the electric company needs a complete over hall from the president down to the line men. and ever since they hired a new company the problems got worse. and they are so unprofessional. junk for trucks. go to Andrea’s beach in the day. you will find 2 or 3 electric trucks there and the men laying around doing nothing. what supervisor allows this. so, the problem is so deep rooted and nasty a complete change of personal is needed, or the same old stories, excuses and deceiving ticktacks will follow.
If Dominican Republic would invest in infrastructure, access more international assistance, improve law enforcement, tax the rich, make sure people get paid for the work they do, they would have so much development and tourism it would be an economic boom.