Union Babosa Once Again

Submitted by enperadore on 20 July, 2008 - 12:36.

Once again the irresponsibility of Union Fenosa and lack of customer service in Nicaragua rears its ugly head. On friday night a "secondary cable" as they call it, overheated and snapped, I had called a week early about the cable and they came but did nothing about it. Over half the neigborhood was dark but I had light because I have a 240 connection directly to a transformer. Well, Union Fenosa shows up about an hour after the cable snapps off and instead of repairing a simple cable they lower the main breaker at post, leaving everyone in darkness and immediately leave saying they need a part. Its sunday right now and the entire area, over 4 blocks have been without light. Everyone has been calling but fenosa claims they have no workcrews because yesterday was a holiday and today is sunday so maybe tomorrow monday. It's this kind of thinking that the customer is last and should wait until the merchant feels like taking care of business that irks me. You find this mentality in hardware stores, restaurants, stores and worst of all in government offices. Now the Government owns 16% of fenosa but they have not force any changes in the business mentality. Also Fenosa is a Spanish company and they know this kind of behavoir would never fly in Spain but since Nicaragua are a bunch of "Indios Stupidos" we can operate in a different manner than in Spain.

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INE

Submitted by fyl on 21 July, 2008 - 06:21.

It would see that this is an example of something to take to either INE or the new Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM). I am not sure who really serves as the regulator these days.

We are considering going to INE with our UF-related experience. It is clear that what they are doing is not in the best interest of Nicaragua.

In our case, we are over 2 km from the main road with the 2.4kV line. We are prepared to run the line in but have been told that UF requires 2/0 guage wire. That wire size is sufficient for maybe 1000 homes and, I believe, is the size of the main feed on the public road.

There are five houses on the entry road. Four belong to one family who owns most of the surrounding land (Rocha) and the fifth is our caretaker's house. Adjacent land on the far side is owned by a few additional families but, beyond that, nothing. So, this requirement makes no sense.

Talking to people in the know, they all agree that it is UF getting consumers to pay the cost of extending the electricity grid. This is not an unreasonable approach if it was being applied fairly. I can see two ways that would make sense:

  1. UF actually looks at the needs and potential needs and uses reasonable requirments rather than this "one size fits all" edict.
  2. UF treats this as an investment in their grid. While the consumer pays for the addition to the grid, it is treated as a credit against their future electricity use.

disnorte

Submitted by Billy Bob on 20 July, 2008 - 16:50.

is the electrical provider here and I belive it is Nicaraguan.

My Nicaragua family members contacted them 3 times in an attepmt to get power to our new house, including waiting in line 3 hours to see ël responsable¨who wasn´t there. They gave up, nobody in the office was willing or able to do anything.

We contacted a local Nicaraguan electrician. He looked at our job site, told us to finish the house without electricity, have him wire it, and Disnorte would probably give us juice within 2 months because they are slow and inefficient.

Can´t always blame Spain.

I am not blaming Spain, I

Submitted by enperadore on 20 July, 2008 - 22:38.

I am not blaming Spain, I blame the nicaraguan government for allowing this kind of behavior. I went thru the hassels of getting power installed, it wasn't even an installation but rather a change from 120v to 240v but it took over 5 months and numerous trips and almost daily phone calls to the masaya office. The Granada office is useless plus the masaya is the regional office that handles all new connections and changes to service.