ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC):

Dominicans are being urged to acquire private generators to meet their electricity needs after the island's sole supplier, the Dominica Electricity Services Limited (DOMLEC), said it was having difficulty meeting the needs of the population.

The company has warned of power outages in coming weeks as a result of the generating problems.

"Over the next few weeks, we are expected to realise a substantial shortfall in capacity. Without rainfall, the hydro-plants are producing much less than what we expect it to and we have been faced with defects that developed in two of our diesel units," DOMLEC's public relations officer Adina Valentine said.

To help reduce its energy output, DOMLEC Wednesday called on businesses and homeowners to use generators.

"We have requested to those companies who are able to provide their own electricity needs to do their own generating in order to lessen the impact of load shedding on domestic households," she said, adding that efforts were underway to repair the defective units as soon as possible. "Our mandate is to keep the power on and we are working to do so, we have been working feverishly on the two units that have been giving us problems," she said.