Santo Domingo.– The CEO of the Dominican State-owned Power Companies (CDEEE) today said a failure in Puerto Plata’s San Felipe plant caused yesterday’s hours-long blackout in Santo Domingo, in addition to the delays in the transport of fuels for generators, resulting form the snow storm in the United States.

Celso Marranzini, responding to reporters who cited complaints by customers who withstood the blackout lasting as long as 20 hours, said “everything is back to normal already.”

The official said the service has been stable in the last three months and yesterday’s situation “was a bad day in which several factors converged,” including the “very serious” drought which has led to low output from the country’s dams.

He acknowledged however that the service is still “inefficient” and again noted the limits the lack of payment by those who used receive it, even in sectors enrolled in the ‘24 Hours of Energy’ program. “Until everyone pays for the service, there’ll be no light 24 hours.”