Limited Rationing Today, None Tomorrow, ICE Says
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) announced yesterday that the power cuts for today (Saturday) will be drastically reduced and none for tomorrow, Sunday.

The rotating power cuts for today will be only between 7:00am and 11:00am and only to customers who are connected directly to ICE and the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL). Customers of other power utilities, like in Cartago and Heredia, will not have any power cuts today.

And tomorrow, ICE says it will give the everyone a break and not offer any power cuts of any kind, anywhere.

Salvador López, director of the Centro de Control de Energía del ICE, said that electrical power requirements demands are lower during the weekends due to the closing of a majority of industrial plants and private and public offices.

López said that demand on Saturdays is reduced by 40% and much higher on Sundays. The "no rationing" policy will also be in effect on Tuesday, May 1, which is a holiday in Costa Rica.

However, come Monday and the rest of the week, Save Tuesday, rationing of electrical power will resume again, as the Institución battles with low water levels at the Cachí hydro-electric generating station.

The rationing, according to ICE, will continue until Mother Nature contributes with the oncoming rainy reason, filling the reservoir to proper levels with rain water.

While all this is going on everyone is affected directly or indirectly by the consequences of the power cuts. Hospitals have had to resort to turning on their generators to keep operations normal, adding costs to their already strained budgets. The Policía de Tránsito (traffic police) had their resources to the limit to provide traffic control at intersection with darkened traffic lights.

Many businesses report lost sales and having to send home employees during the power failures. The consumer hotline, the sociación Nacional de Consumidores y Usuarios - has told people to be patient as their fax machines and telephones lines used to receive complaints are non operations during the power cuts.

In response to the energy crisis, the government yesterday issued a directive to all publc institutions to develop a plan of saving energy in all its operations, which plan has to be submitted to the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (Minae) - environment and energey ministry - within 15 days.

The good news is that, according to the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional (IMN) - the weatherman - the rain continues to fall on all parts of the country, even though it is not intense and of short duration.

According to the IMN report, yesterday it rained on the Central Pacific, South Pacific, Central Valley, Guanacaste, the Caribbean and the Northern zone.

"The problem is that the rain is spotty and not lasting long", said meteorologist  Gustavo Murillo, adding that this is the normal pattern for the transition from the dry season to the wet season.

For the rain to have any effect on the present energy crisis, experts say that it has to rain intensely for at least two to three hours daily for the coming week to return the water levels at the Cachí reservoir to normal levels.