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View Full Version : Blackouts explained, sort of



NewsWhore
09-20-2006, 03:10 PM
The recent spate of longer-than-usual blackouts is explained by articles in today's press that revealed an important decrease in generation capacity, with three major units going off-line. Itabo II (125 MW), Haina thermoelectric unit (40 MW) and AES-Andres (300 MW) all went off-line on Sunday and Monday. The problem was compounded by the failure of the 69,000-volt power line to Haina which forced 20 circuits off-line. As a result, the north and east of the Dominican Republic were affected by 10-12 hour blackouts. According to the CDEEE, the breakdown of the generation facilities and the power line caused some upscale neighborhoods in Santo Domingo and Santiago to lose electricity for long periods of time. As well as the problems in the south, there were also failures in the transmission lines between Canabacoa (Santiago) and Playa Dorada, Bonao-Maimon-Hatillo and between La Romana and Higuey. The Samana-Nagua network also went out, and this shorted out the substations in Sanchez and Samana. As yet, no official explanation has been given for the outages.

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