Nationwide recurring electrical blackouts in Venezuela began in March 2019. Experts and state-run Corpoelec (Corporación Eléctrica Nacional) sources attribute the electricity shortages to lack of maintenance and to a lack of technical expertise in the country resulting from a brain drain. Nicolás Maduro's administration attributes them to sabotage. Since March 2019, various nationwide blackouts occurred in the country.
The first widespread blackout began on 7 March 2019 at 4:56 pm VET (GMT−4); it lasted through 14 March, when power was restored to much of the country. It was the largest power outage in the country's history, and affected the electricity sector in Venezuela in most of its 23 states, as well as the Brazilian border state of Roraima, causing serious problems in hospitals and clinics, industry, transport and in water service. At least 43 deaths resulted. On 12 March, power returned to some parts of the country, but Caracas remained only partially powered and western regions near the border with Colombia remained dark. Power outages persisted in some areas for many days after 14 March.
Between 14 and 16 of Venezuela's 23 states were again without power from 25 March to 28 March; at least four people died as a result of the three-day lack of power. Another blackout started in the evening of 29 March, followed by another 24 hours later. During the month of March, Venezuela was without power for at least 10 days overall.
The ongoing power outages have worsened the crisis in Venezuela and "suffering, cutting off water supplies and leaving hospitals and airports in the dark". On 31 March, Maduro announced a 30-day plan to ration power. Another major national blackout occurred on 22 July.
History
Most of Venezuela's power comes from one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world, Guri Dam in Bolívar State, Venezuela on the Caroni River; as of 2019, 70–80% of Venezuela's power comes from Guri. Venezuela has a history of electrical blackouts dating at least to 2010; Juan Nagel wrote in Foreign Policy in 2016 that the problems resulted from "massive government corruption [...] and the country's disastrous energy policies". Univision also reported that the problems in the energy sector resulted from corruption and "lack of maintenance and investment". A report from Transparency Venezuela said that maintenance was abandoned for twenty years beginning in 1998. The aging infrastructure made the problems worse, and critics were silenced; a union leader for state power workers was arrested in 2018 by the Bolivarian Intelligence Service for warning that a blackout was likely.
The private company, Electricidad de Caracas was owned by the United States' AES Corporation until 2007; according to The Wall Street Journal, "Venezuela's power grid was once the envy of Latin America". Then-President Hugo Chávez created the state-run Corpoelec by nationalizing the electric sector and expelling private industry in 2007; hence, the state has been solely responsible for energy supply for over ten years. Univision says Chávez "admitted failures (...) such as the 'insufficient' availability of the thermoelectric generation plant and the limitations of the national electric power transmission network and distribution systems"; he signed a decree in 2010 declaring a "State of Emergency of the National Electric Service". Chávez had Corpoelec speed up projects, and bypassing the process of public bidding for projects, he "authorized 'contracting by direct award'," which facilitated corruption.
In 2009, the Chávez administration declared a national electric emergency and invested $100 billion US dollars towards solving it. The Chávez administration "distributed million-dollar contracts without bidding that enriched high officials of his government and the works were never built", according to Univision. The Wall Street Journal stated that the government awarded electrical contracts to companies with little experience in the energy sector. Billions of dollars were awarded in contracts for projects that were never completed, leading to international investigations of "high officials of the Chavez regime today persecuted for plundering the coffers of the Bolivarian Republic". Critics say that one company, Derwick Associates, was given projects although they had no previous experience; Derwick denies any bribes were involved. Of 40 energy projects approved between 2010 and 2014 analyzed by Transparency Venezuela, 17 are not completed as of March 2019, none are operating at capacity, and overcharging by billions of dollars was identified.
Further complicating the technical matters, the administration of Corpoelec was handed over to a Venezuelan National Guard Major General, Luis Motta Domínguez, who had admitted to a lack of experience in the energy industry. Restarting an aging power grid requires specialists and equipment that may no longer be available in Venezuela, as a result of a brain drain; thousands of workers have left the country, or have left Corpoelec because of "meager wages and an atmosphere of paranoia fed by Mr. Maduro's ever-present secret police", according to experts cited by The New York Times.
There were two major blackouts in 2013. In 2016, Venezuela had a severe electricity crisis that caused blackouts, industry shutdowns, and the decision by then-President Nicolás Maduro to cut back on government employees' work hours. Maduro's administration has put rationing in place several times, and changed the country's clocks to accommodate a daytime commute. Nagel wrote in 2016, "... there are two main reasons for the crisis: excessive electricity consumption and insufficient production. And the root of both of these problems is bad governance: populism, poor planning, inflexible ideology, and overwhelming corruption." And in 2017, there were more than 18,000 power outages nationwide.
In 2017, the National Assembly investigated the $100 billion invested in the electrical system and determined that over $80 billion was embezzled, that more than 14 thermoelectric stations were not functioning, and that neither the electrical transmission nor the distribution system had adequate maintenance.
Attempts to explain the ongoing power failures, despite the billions of dollars spent, have led to public scorn and ridicule on social media; in 2018, Motta Dominguez said on Instagram, "Comrades! In some cases, faults in the electrical system are produced by animals such as: rats, mice, snakes, cats, squirrels, rabbits, turkey vultures, etc., that are looking for burrows, nests or hiding places, and are introduced into the system's equipment causing the failure." In March 2019, two Venezuelan citizens—Jesús Ramón Veroes and Luis Alberto Chacín Haddad, who live in the US and have long associations with Corpoelec's Motta Domínguez—were charged in Florida District Court with money laundering, violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and "misappropriation, theft and embezzlement of public funds by or for the benefit of a public official"; the complaint alleges millions of dollars were transferred from Corpoelec to their Florida bank accounts in 2016 and 2017.
Causes
Most of Venezuela's largest cities are powered from the San Geronimo B substation, connected to the hydroelectric power plant at the Gurí Dam "via one of the longest high-voltage lines in the world". Sources cited by Corpoelec indicated a vegetation fire occurred on three lines of 765 kV between the dam and the Malena and San Gerónimo B substations. The fire overheated the lines, triggering load rejection mechanisms that protect the lines connected to the dam. According to the School of Electrical Engineering of the Central University of Venezuela, the momentary loss of power at the Gurí Dam caused the turbines to increase their speed, creating an overload on electrical systems. The university further stated that the safety control systems in Gurí were activated to reduce the increased energy input, but the system became uncontrollable and forced operators to disconnect the generators in the dam. When the generators were disconnected, the electrical frequency could not be regulated and overloaded power plants located in Caruachi and Macagua. Because thermal power plants in Venezuela are not being operated due to the shortages of fuel provided by PDVSA, fluctuations in electrical frequencies exacerbated the power grid and contributed to continued blackouts.
Satellite images by NASA show that the vegetation fire in the Guri started a day before the blackout. Vegetation near power lines in Venezuela had not been pruned since 2018 – a particularly serious situation because of the dry season. Engineers and analysts quoted by The Guardian say the cause is underfunding and mismanagement, including the deployment of soldiers to operate electrical substations instead of electricians. A fault affected three large cables from the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant, which supply 80% of Venezuela's power. One cable lost power between the Malena and San Gerónimo B substations on the main network, which caused the other two to also lose power. The engineer Miguel Lara, ex-manager of the Office of Planning of the Interconnected System, quoted by El Pitazo, declared the thermal plants did not start and that the rapid response generation plants did not work, so the electric service during the blackout was restored only in some areas. The New York Times quoted José Aguilar, a Chicago-based Venezuelan power industry expert and consultant for reinsurance companies, who reviewed country-wide power levels during the blackout and said the government had attempted to restart Guri multiple times, leading to an explosion at a nearby substation. Aguilar said these restart attempts had damaged "something else in the system, destabilizing the grid yet further (...) Obviously, they are hiding something from us." The blackout occurred on Thursday 7 March; The New York Times said Corpoelec workers and a manager said no date had been set by 11 March for restart; that they were asked not to report to work that Monday; and the Times added, "[t]heir names have been withheld to protect them from government reprisals."
Another backup substation, San Geronimo A, is connected to a smaller plant at Matagua, and was able to send a weaker, intermittent current during the blackout. The government had built over a dozen backup plants powered by diesel or natural gas; none of them functioned during the outage. The New York Times said the supply of fuel required to run thermal power plants has been affected by US sanctions.
The administration of Nicolás Maduro blamed US sabotage for the outage without providing any evidence, according to the BBC and The New York Times. Maduro alleged that the US had used advanced technology for a cyberattack on the grid. Jorge Rodríguez, communications minister for the Maduro administration, pointed to Twitter posts by US Senator Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and acting president Juan Guaidó, alleging that they demonstrated inside information about the blackout.
Guaidó said Maduro's administration had failed to maintain the electrical grid. Venezuelan energy experts cited by El Pitazo have rejected the theory that the blackout was caused by sabotage, since the area of the Gurí Dam is heavily guarded by members of the Armed Forces, where it operates a special command and the internal security of Corpolec. These specialists have also pointed out that Gurí was constructed before the Internet existed, does not use the Internet, hence does not allow for hacking. A risk management consultant cited by El Nacional dismissed the statement by government officials and assured that the design of the hydroelectric plant system does not allow "attacks" of that type. He said, "These systems can not be attacked remotely. They are closed control systems designed for generating turbines to work synchronously," and that would be "like hacking a refrigerator or a blender."
The term "electromagnetic attack" often used, for a blackout of this magnitude, to refer an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion, similar to those tested by the US in Starfish Prime or by Soviet Union's Project K. Sharon Burke from New America, a non partisan think tank, consider that such an event would be noticeable by other nations. David Weinstein, chief security officer at Claroty, a security company that specializes in protecting infrastructure, considers unlikely the use of electromagnetic bursts to knock out the Venezuelan electric grid and states that "the power fails easily in Venezuela anyway, so it's almost like a waste of the capability".
Lisandro Cabello, secretary of the state of Zulia governorship from the PSUV party, said the explosions in electrical substations in that state were caused by kites.
Effects
The most vulnerable sectors of society were affected, with power, water, food, transportation and medical shortages. France 24 reported that the country lost US$200 million daily according to Carlos Larrazabal, the head of Fedecámaras; he said the biggest losses were in the food sector. Torino Capital investment bank estimated that US$1 billion was lost from Venezuela's GDP as a result of the power outages.