Power cuts have become a daily reality for many Venezuelans, and the situation has only gotten worse since January 3, when longtime leader Nicolás Maduro was abducted by US forces. In the months since, residents in states across the country have organized marches to voice their frustration over outages that show no sign of letting up.
On Thursday, that unrest reached parts of Caracas, a city that had largely avoided regular blackouts since 2019. Protesters there directed their anger at interim president Delcy Rodríguez, who has run Venezuela with backing from the Trump administration since Maduro’s removal.
A Promise That Hasn’t Delivered Yet
Rodríguez has said she wants to open Venezuela‘s struggling electricity grid to private investors, building on earlier reforms to the country’s hydrocarbon and mining laws meant to attract outside money. Since the US eased some sanctions and took over management of Venezuela’s oil exports, it has brought in roughly $13 billion in revenue.
Even so, ordinary Venezuelans say they haven’t seen much change on the ground. The gap between the promises coming out of Caracas and Washington and the reality of daily life is fueling much of the frustration behind the protests.
What Life Looks Like for Residents
For people living through the outages, the toll is personal and immediate. Graciela González, a retired teacher in Aragua state near Caracas, said she has lost household appliances to the power cuts, including her television and air conditioner, which both burned out this week. Her area now deals with outages lasting four to five hours every day.
In Carabobo state, home to a major power plant, tensions have run especially high. Police were sent in to contain and break up demonstrations there as residents protested almost daily throughout the week.
How Venezuela Got Here
The irony is hard to ignore. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves and is capable of generating about 90 percent of its electricity from hydropower. But decades of corruption and poor management, starting after Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, took power in 1999, left the power grid in bad shape.
Things bottomed out during the 2019 economic crisis, when Caracas went days without electricity and millions of Venezuelans left the country. Since then, the government has focused on keeping power flowing in the capital, often at the expense of other regions.
Even the Capital Isn’t Spared Anymore
That strategy appears to be breaking down. Blackouts are now becoming more common in Caracas itself. On Friday, Mayor Carmen Meléndez announced the workday would be cut to half a day because of insufficient power.
Conditions have been especially difficult in Catia, a lower income neighborhood. The area went 15 hours without electricity on Thursday. She said the constant power and water cuts have made even basic tasks like washing clothes a struggle.
Rodríguez’s Explanation
Rodríguez, who has earned praise from the Trump administration for opening up Venezuela’s oil and mining sectors to foreign investors, has not pointed to mismanagement as the cause of the blackouts. Instead, she has blamed natural events and asked citizens to reduce their electricity use at home.
She pointed specifically to damage at the TermoCarabobo gas fired power plant, which she said was hit hard by the dual earthquakes that struck central Venezuela in June. Speaking last Sunday, she urged people to think about what they could do at home or at work to conserve energy, noting the plant had been brought back to about half its pre-earthquake capacity.
Rodríguez has also pointed to El Niño, the weather pattern known for shifting temperatures and rainfall and contributing to droughts across South America, as another factor behind the crisis.