Families will have to have a very high percentage of their income to cover the services.
The people of Santiago will begin to receive bills for electricity and gas consumption next week with the impact of the considerable increases and the removal of subsidies ordered by the national government of Javier Milei.
The repeated and sky-high increases in energy service rates since Milei assumed the presidency have painfully punished users’ pockets.
The Ministry of Energy authorized an increase in the wholesale price of electricity, which in the months of June and July will cost $57,214 MWh (a unit of measurement used in the wholesale electricity market). This value represents 80% of the real value of energy generation ($71,411).
In turn, limits were established for low-income users (level 2 of the current segmentation scheme) and middle income users (level 3). The former will receive a 72% bonus on the wholesale price of energy, while the latter will have a 56% discount. The differences will continue to be made up by the Government through subsidies.
According to the resolution, level 1 (high income) will benefit from the general subsidy, so they will pay 80% of the real value of the cost of electricity. Meanwhile, level 2 will pay 22.5% and level 3, 35.3% of the cost. Until last month, the middle and lower sectors paid less than 5% of the generation cost.
The Government also established new limits for subsidized energy at levels 2 and 3. Low-income sectors, which until now did not have limits, will be subsidized up to 350 KWh per month.
Meanwhile, middle-income sectors will have a subsidy limit of 250 KWh (previously it was 400 KWh). All consumption above these limits will have an extra cost of 356% for level 2 and 227% for level 3.
According to calculations by the National Energy Secretariat, the new scheme implies an increase of 22.8% in June for the high-income sector; 155.8% for middle-income sectors; and 99% for low-income sectors.
The price of electricity is made up of 3 segments: the generation cost (managed by the Cammesa wholesale company); that of transportation and Value Added Distribution (VaD).
With the changes ordered by Milei, the national government only increased the value of the first segment, while continuing to postpone the other 2, despite the fact that last April it had announced a system of monthly increases, in line with inflation, and a new system of subsidies only for low-income sectors, which he postponed until November.
In the case of gas, the Government increased the price at the point of entry into the transportation system (the wholesale cost paid by distributors) by US$3.3 per million BtU (the measure used in the sector) on average. . In the original official plan the wholesale price should have reached US$4.49 per million BTU (36% more).
As with electricity, the Ministry of Energy established differential prices for levels 2 and 3, and left those in level 1 without a bonus (that is, they will pay the full price of the rate).
For low-income sectors, the bonus will be 64% (that is, they will pay US$1.18 per million BTU), while middle-income sectors will have a 55% discount (they will pay US$1.18 per million BTU). 48).
Users who are included in the N1 segment and consider that they should receive a subsidy must complete the procedure on the website of the Ministry of Energy (http://www.argentina.gob.ar/subsidios) and complete the socioeconomic data. of the family group and the data of the electrical service from which the subsidy is requested.
With the procedure number and the category assigned by the Energy Sec., the user must inform the Enrese of this for the purposes of being classified as a N2 or N3 user.
