He Atlantic Interguild Committee requests the national government to annul Resolution No. 40116 of the Ministry of Mines and Energy and Resolution No. 101042 of the Energy and Gas Regulatory Commission, CREG.
Instead, it asks you to apply measures that achieve greater efficiency in the generation, transmission, distribution and marketing of energy; and make decisions that lead to a better design of the market for this basic input for the productivity of companies, the well-being of households and the economic development of the country.
These requests are based, according to Intergremial, on the following considerations:
1. Electricity rates will rise even more starting in May as a consequence of Resolution No. 40116 of the Ministry of Mines that forces thermoelectric plants to make forced dispatches and establishes new rules for the dispatch of hydroelectric plants. This measure causes increases in the cost of the Restrictions through which the cost of forced generation of the thermoelectric park is distributed.
The increase in the cost of the Restrictions component impacts the Unit Cost, which in the first two days of the application of this resolution rose from $8 pesos per kilowatt hour to $256 per kilowatt hour, and to this will be added the payments of the debt balances that users have with marketers through the so-called Rate Option; the increases derived from having an energy supply lower than the needs of market demand; and the increases due to the punishment established by the national government for those who exceed their consumption.
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2. Although the intervention of the national Government has artificially plummeted the price of energy on the Stock Market, the impact of this fact will be exceeded in excess by the increase in the cost of the Restrictions applied to generation, and will have no effect on the purpose of overcoming the threats of rationing due to the low level that the reservoirs still present.
By inducing an inadequate valuation of energy resources, the risk of rationing is significantly increased, and an extra cost is borne by the end user on their bill. It is the hydroelectric plants that must assume the costs that allow them to store water and recover the reservoirs.
3. The market intervention carried out by the national government rewards the inefficiencies of those hydroelectric plants that did not adequately manage their reservoirs and committed to deliveries that they could not fulfill, and of the marketing companies that were not covered by bilateral contracts.
The most affected will be the buyers through contracts, in a market in which 85% of the energy is sold under this scheme, because now they will have to pay for forced generation with restrictions; and consumers in general.
4. Decisions such as the one adopted by the Ministry of Mines and Energy invalidate the positive effect of the Reliability Charge, which is made for situations such as those derived from current climatic conditions. In addition to the Reliability Charge, which we users pay so that the thermal plants operate at their maximum capacity and meet the demand for energy that the hydroelectric plants cannot supply, now the Government applies extra costs on our energy bills for the same purpose, which It means a double payment for that concept.
With the first rains that have fallen these days and the change in trend in the reduction of reservoirs, the hydroelectric plants lowered the value of their offers, causing the price of energy on the stock market to fall from more than $1,000 to $239. As a consequence, hydroelectric plants buy on the stock market at a lower price the energy they themselves need to meet their contractual delivery obligations, increasing their profits while they fill the reservoirs, and the cost of restrictions on all demand increases disproportionately. of energy.
5. Resolution No. 40116 of the Ministry of Mines and Energy also affects self-generators that contribute with their surpluses and are remunerated with the Stock Market price. With the fall in such prices it is not profitable for them to generate surplus energy to sell to the market and contribute to reducing the risk of blackouts. The industrial sector will be strongly impacted by higher energy costs, thus hindering its recovery in the midst of a difficult economic situation.
6. CREG Resolution No. 101042 introduces substantial rate increases that punish excess energy consumption, with rates increased up to 130% for strata 1 to 3, 150% for strata 4 to 6, and 200% for the commercial and industrial sector. This measure may be counterproductive for the economic dynamism of the Caribbean Region, an area with growing energy demand, exacerbated by rising temperatures, a situation that directly affects the activities of vital sectors such as tourism, commercial and real estate.
Intergremial Atlántico pointed out that the increased rates could repress the much-needed economic recovery and expansion, imposing additional costs at times of peak consumption, which not only neglects seasonal variations in energy consumption in the region, but also runs the risk of accentuate the disparity in energy costs nationwide.
“This raises serious concerns about the equity and sustainability of business operations in the face of this new tariff scheme”he finished.
