Off the wire
• Kurdish group claims Bursa bombing attack  • Influx of labor force from abroad must be regulated in Slovakia: official  • 12 Years of EU membership most successful period of Slovakia: official  • Chinese, Kenyan universities ink deal to train oil experts  • Feature: Portuguese call for better working conditions  • Sudan rebels claims army plane crash  • Roundup: Violence erupts during Paris rally against labor reform on May Day  • May Day protest staged in Croatia  • Egypt assumes rotating presidency of UN Security Council for May  • 2 sentenced over violent scuffles with police in Paris  
You are here: 　 Home

Venezuela formally sets clocks ahead to save power

Xinhua, May 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Venezuelan government announced on Sunday that it will shift its time ahead by half an hour to save more electricity as a continuing drought has started to drained hydroelectric dams.

All telecommunications, IT and banking services have already made the change to facilitate the switch which will be put in place from 14:30 local time, Vice President Jorge Arreaza said on Saturday night in a television program.

Jesus Escalona, chief of the country's timekeeping institution, said that the switch time was chosen with an aim to cause the least disruption for the stock exchanges, flights and ships.

President Nicolas Maduro first made the announcement on April 14.

Since early April, Maduro has rolled out a number of measures to avoid running out of water at the Guri dam, which powers the Simon Bolivar hydroelectric plant, responsible for much of Venezuela's power.

In order to maintain its output, the plant needs to have a water level between 240 and 272 meters above sea level. The Minister of Electrical Energy, Luis Motta Dominguez, warned recently that Guri's water level was just 1.6 meters above its minimal point. Endit