Venezuela's Power Crisis Worsens with Double Rationing under Corpoelec

Before Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, Venezuela's electricity system combined public and private firms and generated roughly 20,000 MW, far exceeding the 12,000 MW it consumed. The sector was considered one of the region's best, with companies such as Electricidad de Caracas (then owned by AES) operating alongside state‑run utilities. Between 2007 and 2008 the government fully nationalised the grid, creating the state company Corpoelec and displacing dozens of private operators.

Since the nationalisation, the country has faced chronic shortages. In the state of Monagas, residents now endure a permanent double‑rationing schedule, with daily outages lasting up to six continuous hours and sometimes four separate cuts per day. The cuts, originally announced as a 45‑day measure by interim president Delcy Rodríguez, have stretched into months, prompting complaints and demands for a published outage timetable from Corpoelec.