The Bolivarian revolution runs out of energy

Just looking at the satellite photos of the NASA taken on the night of March 7, it is possible to observe the immediate source of the national power outage that left Venezuela paralyzed for a week: two small fires, dangerous as they started very close to certain essential lines of transmission of electrical energy.

If the image opens, it is possible to observe Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, sinking into total darkness. On Monday, March 25, another blackout darkened Caracas and 16 other entities. The Venezuelan government said power outages were the fault of multiple cyberattacks, but for decades, under the presidency of Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, the electrical system has been neglected.

To identify the real causes of Venezuela's delay of at least four days in March to restore power, a broader vision including the United States is needed. Without a doubt, Chavez and Maduro are responsible for putting the country in this situation. However, the economic sanctions imposed by the US government have left the Maduro regime unable to solve the electricity crisis alone.

The causes of the first outage are now very clear. A comprehensive report written by the director of the School of Electrical Engineering of the Central University of Venezuela shows that the blackout occurred as a result of a fire that took place. Is reported near the three power lines of the Guri Hydropower Complex, in the south-east of the country. from Venezuela. This complex includes several dams and power plants that together produce 80% of the energy exported to the national system; therefore, its disconnection can produce a national power outage.

The lack of adequate vegetation size may have increased the risk of fire, although this type of phenomenon can be initiated almost anywhere. We must also remember that this was not the first national power outage in Venezuela. In short, the problem lies not so much in the fact that a power outage has occurred, but in the fact that the authorities have taken more than four days to resolve it.

To restart the system, it is necessary to activate dam generators and substations located in remote areas of the country. The problem is that only about one-fifth of the country's thermal generation capacity was in operation at the time of the outage, so it was virtually impossible to make up for the lack of a hydroelectric generating station. Apparently, the lack of alternative energy source and specialized workers, as well as the deterioration of the equipment and some simple deficiencies in the administration, have been combined to prolong the blackout.

However, economic sanctions imposed by the United States have also played a role. First, one of the reasons why some of the power plants were not working was the lack of fuel for their operation. Many of these factories use diesel, imported from the United States by Venezuela before the Donald Trump government banned its sale in January. It is therefore not surprising that many of the country's diesel power plants are inactive a month later.

Worse still, Venezuela's huge electricity sector depends to a large extent on parts and services provided by international companies. General Electric (GE) and Siemens manufacture most of the electric generators used in the Venezuelan oil industry and much of the major equipment used in the country's hydroelectric power plants. Economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the United States in August 2017 deprived the government of the ability to pay these foreign suppliers.

As a result, the country was unable to maintain or replace its electric generators and began to exploit more hydroelectric sources in the country, increasing the risk of overloading the system. Venezuela's oil production also fell: the rate of decline in production more than tripled after the sanctions of 2017. This pressure has aggravated the government's monetary crisis.

In any case, it can not be lightly concluded that the sanctions were more than a secondary factor in the causes of the mbadive power outages experienced by Venezuela. It is obvious that the lack of investment, the lack of maintenance and the economic crisis of the country, accentuated by corruption and absurd subsidies to electricity, are the main causes. In this sense, Chavez and Maduro are undoubtedly the main culprits behind the collapse of the electricity sector.

To have a serious conversation about the effect of sanctions, it is essential to distinguish between the causes of the phenomenon and its solutions. Although it can be said that power outages in general are incumbent on Chávez and Maduro, it is impossible to solve them if the restrictions that prevent the government from hiring foreign companies and paying them to care maintenance and repair of the country's electrical system. Not only Maduro, but also Juan Guaidó and Donald Trump control the levers needed to solve the current energy crisis.

The most recent sanctions imposed by the United States on the Venezuelan oil industry legally prevent US companies from dealing with the Venezuelan state oil company. At the same time, non-US companies are threatened with secondary sanctions if they deal with the Maduro regime. Most of Venezuela's bank accounts in the United States and Europe are either blocked or under the control of people designated by Guaidó, so that Maduro can not use them to pay for business services that he should contract to maintain the country's electricity grid with the necessary repairs.

If the political stalemate in the country is not quickly resolved, the only option to prevent the electricity crisis from continuing and worsening will be that Venezuelan rival political factions agree to Act together to provide and manage the necessary resources. A first step might be that both parties agree to appoint an independent workforce.

Any proposal for cooperation between the country's political factions will be anathema to its hardliners, and will probably be considered, at best, unrealistic. However, even in times of war, armies open a way to protect those who do not participate in combat and allow the pbadage of humanitarian organizations to help the wounded. Unless the country's political actors reach an agreement and put the lives of ordinary citizens above their political goals, Venezuelans will face even darker times.

Francisco Rodríguez He is the chief economist of Torino Economics and has headed the Office of Economic and Financial Advice of the National Assembly. Jorge Alejandro Rodríguez, electrical engineer, is a former vice president of power generation and transmission of the Venezuelan company Cadafe.

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