• As early as in 2002 there was a presidential commission to cope with the electric power crisis. The incumbents knew what they had to do and where the investments should be made. But Cuba prevailed

El Universal: All of those who could have done anything were there. Or they sent a representative. In July 2002, the Guri dam was at the level of "alert zone" and it was expected that in the dry season of the following year a real emergency could emerge in the nationwide power supply. Something should be done right away, experts said in a meeting held on July 3. Power should be rationalized to prevent future forced cuts. So many things had to be done. But they were not.

Not only the current electricity crisis is old, but could have been explained otherwise, in addition to the El Nino and the presumed unrestrained consumption attributed to Venezuelans. We are where we are for political reasons. In 2002, a decision was made accordingly: there would not be rationing because the government was not amenable to the idea of bearing the cost of such unpopular step. The government operated at risk and bet on rains. Luckily, it rained. This left the planners' warning in dead letter. And then Cubans arrived.

Miguel Lara was the general manager of the Operation Office of Interconnected Systems (Opsis), a center entrusted by electric utilities Cadafe, Edelca, Electricidad de Caracas and Enelven with coordination of the country's electricity planning. On July 3rd, 2002, they had the honor to make a presentation about the risk status of the sector in the second meeting of the "Presidential Commission to Face the Potential Risk of Power in Short Supply."

The meeting was held at the office of then Venezuelan Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel. According to the agenda, it was attended by high-ranking officers Diosdado Cabello, Ali Rodriguez Araque, Francisco Rangel Gomez (Venezuelan Guayana Corporation), Alvaro Silva Calderon and Nervis Villalobos for the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and the board of the electrical utilities.

"Our findings showed that in the event of continuing the trend at that time, we were heading for collapse," Lara explained.

There is plenty of evidence that the "top government" was aware of the impending risk. Even in June 2002, the Opsis Executive Committee sent a report to the offices of Rangel -- who headed the presidential commission responsible to cope with the crisis- Silva Calderon, Tobias Nobrega, Ramon Rosales, Ali Rodriguez Araque, Francisco Rangel Gomez and Nervis Villalobos, insisting on the need to take action, namely: complete ongoing works; widen the power capacity; decentralize the electricity sector; collect the debt owed by the state to electricity utilities; fight power theft, and take steps and launch campaigns on energy rationalization and saving.

And nothing -- or almost nothing -- was done. And then, Cuba set an example.

Coming back

"The crisis had been forecast in 2003," Victor Poleo, general director of Electricity, Ministry of Energy & Mines in 1999-2001, said. "Yet we must thank the government for not happening earlier. I mean: because the reported projects of new refineries, mass transportation, or the dreamed cities of Guayana did not materialize, and because the activity of basic industries shrank and the industrial estate fell down near 50%, the electricity crisis did not arrive earlier."

Miguel Lara agrees, but his estimates were a bit more optimistic. "I was expecting it in 2010-2011. But, yes, the crisis is not more serious because such huge projects were never implemented and because of reduced operations in basic industries."

Both Poleo and Lara said that in 1999 the demand was expected to grow at 3.5-5%. As a matter of fact, in 1998-2008, the demand heightened by 5,497 MW compared with the installed supply of only 3,458 MW, which means actual availability of 2,420 MW, 405 MW of which go -theoretically- to distributed generation.

This is the essence of the Cuban recipe. In his TV and radio show "Alo, Presidente," broadcast on September 21, 2008, the very President Hugo Chavez said that his Cuban mentor Fidel Castro made him see the light on the way to power revolution. That is, in a first stage, thermal generation plants consisting of small, 15-MW, diesel-powered interconnected plants. Incidentally, diesel is among the most expensive fuels in the international market.

"Where did those plants come from?" asked a cheerful Chavez in his program. "Perhaps you won't believe it -- from Cuba. Because Fidel installed throughout Cuba hundreds, thousands of those plants, the power revolution, he explained it to me in depth."

Clear enough. "I would like to thank Fidel, who first talked me about it. 'Look Chavez.' And then we made the deal. The agreement for all those distributed generation plants, as it were."

It is understood that Castro also explained to Chavez the issue of the lamps. "53 million lamps. Where did those lamps come from? From Cuba, as Fidel has a manufacturing plant there."

The framework for this -- and many others -- exchanges between Cuba and Venezuela is a cooperation agreement signed on October 30, 2000, and extended on December 14, 2004. Arrangements in the field of energy and even the use of satellites were already tackled there. Such goodwill statements are materialized in direct business between Cuba's National Electrical Union and Cadafe under a contract for "development of the electrical infrastructure in Venezuela," involving a gross amount of million Venezuelan bolivars that Cubans are to collect without supervision of the works, based on a document that is waiting for the signature of the Venezuelan National Electrical Corporation (Corpoelec).

How to understand the panorama? "The government knew what it had to do. Instead, it sought Cubans," Poleo said. "With these little Havana plants, the crisis will not be overcome."

Such a mechanism -- which works indeed in a rural Cuba -- lavishly hailed by President Chavez, is similar to that of the 19th-Century Venezuela.

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