Electricity Deposit

turksman

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Mar 14, 2005
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Hi there. A few questions guys.

1. Does the Electricity company ask for a cash deposit when opening a new account? If so how much? I will be living in Santo Domingo if that help in determining costs.

Also how long do they take to activate your power service?
 

Givadogahome

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Sep 27, 2011
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A deposit for what?
No, no deposit.
Activation can be anything from 24 hours to never (realistically looking at about 3 days average, Dominican average), in which case you just live off others, which is what about 35% of the capital does at the moment.
 
Feb 7, 2007
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Yes there is a deposit. It is pre-established, though by seeing a Gringo face they mad "add more".

It is RD$1.000 for 110V service and RD$2.000 for 220V service (residential only). If they have no 110V meters they will install 220V meter and service. They may ask you to "pay" the deposit when you sign the contract, just ask this deposit to be billed on your first invoice, and if you ask nicely they can even split it up between 2 invoices.

Deposits are different for businesses based on estimated usage and rate bracket.
 

Givadogahome

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Sep 27, 2011
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On 3 houses in SD, never paid a deposit to get hooked up, ever. And to be honest, not that I've checked I can't remember ever being billed for one. I'm not doubting you, just telling you I've never had one billed to me, and certinly not been mentioned when signing a contract.

Changed cable company and they did sneakily mention nothing of a deposit and did stick RD850 on our first bill, which was a bit dry, but not the end of the world. And the channel selection is crap, even with the ultimate package with all channels its not great, Wind aren't that great, good customer service but.......................
 

turksman

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Mar 14, 2005
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Actually the House I am renting already has power hooked up in the landlord's name, is transferring it to my name going to be easy? All I have is a lease and my Passport!
 

Givadogahome

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Sep 27, 2011
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Why not just leave it in his name and you go pay the bills? I've never transfered lecy bills before, but I have cable and that was easy, which is odd as I expected them to be fussy about changed a less than 12 month old contract.
There is always a way around things and as you know, nothing is ever the same from one to another. Figure it out once in, nothing is ever simple but anything and everything is possible.
 

turksman

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Mar 14, 2005
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turksman - Yes, with that you will be fine.

Rubio I will be staying in a hotel until I finish buying all my furniture or at least my key furniture so that I can move in. Will they cut off the power for a period of time before they reconnect it in my name?
 

karlheinz

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Oct 2, 2006
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Rubio I will be staying in a hotel until I finish buying all my furniture or at least my key furniture so that I can move in. Will they cut off the power for a period of time before they reconnect it in my name?

THEY VERY WELL MIGHT - it's just easier to pay the bills in the landlords name, especially if you have the bills in hand - I've been paying my elec bill at the Banco Popular inside Sederias California (on the Conde) for years with just the bill which is in the previous leasee name....it's easier all around.
 

karlheinz

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Oct 2, 2006
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Hi there. A few questions guys.

1. Does the Electricity company ask for a cash deposit when opening a new account? If so how much? I will be living in Santo Domingo if that help in determining costs.

Also how long do they take to activate your power service?


I went through all that a number of years ago when renting an apartment that had been closed for years and without power. Went to CEDEE on Independencia with my passport and a copy of the lease. They had me fill out a sheet with the listed appliances I expected to use to determine service requirements for the house. I believe I had to pay about $1500 pesos +/-......the service was on one or two days later. At the other end when we moved out CEDEE did in fact return the deposit when I closed out the account.
 

PeteyPablo

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Apr 30, 2011
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I went through all that a number of years ago when renting an apartment that had been closed for years and without power. Went to CEDEE on Independencia with my passport and a copy of the lease. They had me fill out a sheet with the listed appliances I expected to use to determine service requirements for the house. I believe I had to pay about $1500 pesos +/-......the service was on one or two days later. At the other end when we moved out CEDEE did in fact return the deposit when I closed out the account.

I have heard that they even come out to your home to determine that.
 

Smart

Bronze
Jun 16, 2012
709
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I've been waiting 3 months to have my electric connected, I have signed a contract but was not asked for a deposit, but then I am still living off free electric, not connected properly. The engineers have even been out and left me connected to the street supply.
 

Smart

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Jun 16, 2012
709
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I think the whole electric business here is extremely unorganized. Speaking to my work colleague this morning who has been here the same time as me and got his electricity switched on within 2 days, yet lives less than a Km from me, he hasn't doesn't know of any deposit he has to pay, and mentions he was very pleased at how low his bill was. So it seems possibly where you live exactly depends on what service you get, some people paying no deposit and some paying 2000pesos deposit does not represent a consistent service, some like me not even generating a bill while others paying a fortune. It is certainly something that I would consider top priority to getting the country running smoothly, I can't understand why there is no one who can fix this problem, it seems silly, so much money being lost and I've never come across such a farce.
 
Dec 26, 2011
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I can't understand why there is no one who can fix this problem, it seems silly, so much money being lost and I've never come across such a farce.

I've never seen a people pass the buck, ignore, deflect and postpone so passionately, so enthusiastically. If they'd put half the energy they put into their apathy into doing something, you'd start to see some movement. It's not 100% of the people 100% of the time. But it's the prevailing atmosphere.
 
Feb 7, 2007
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Because the electric business is a big business. Haven't you heard? The Power generators threatened that "they did not care about to leave the whole country switched off" now that the Government is trying to push for contract-renegotiation (famous Madrid Accords).

These "acuerdos" stipulate a minimum price the government pays for each kWh to each plant, and even a minimum payout regardless of plant generation output. There are some plants where it is so expensive to generate, that the government prefers to have them off and not buy from them and pay a monthly "minimum payout". Those payouts are in millions of dollars per month. It's a great business, where you own a half-defunct power plant with obsolete equipment where it costs 20 or 30 pesos per kWh generated, and you do not generate, government pays you couple of millions of dollars every month in order NOT TO generate (because otherwise they would have to buy at 20-30 pesos per kWh), and your only payroll are three guachimen who patrol the abandoned plant.

And when you try to renegotiate, other plant owners (cartel, anyone?) start to threaten to switch off the whole country during Christmas-time. And they make good on their threats, by entering some plants into "unscheduled maintenance" just to show off the government what they "can do".

That's why it's so difficult to fix it.

Problem One.
Expensive generation. Current plant owners refuse to renegotiate current contracts (disadvantageous to government) by kicking and hitting and threatening all around.

Problem Two.
Lack of new power plant construction in the past decade, demand growing, output steady. Current plant owners refuse to allow new power generators into market by kicking and hitting and threatening all around.

Problem Three.
Lack of investment in decade past results in currently unstable and aged network (the 60's, anyone?), both very high, mid, and low tension (local distribution). Transmission losses on VHT are over 15-20%.

Problem Four.
Lack of investment and obsolete equipment PLUS a sh!tty work by local employees results in unstable and outage-prone local distribution network. Our circuit has huge outages every 2 months. 6-7 weeks good almost no power interruptions, then 2 weeks outages, sometimes 2-3 per day, from 1 to several hours. Local transmission losses are about 15%.

Problem Five.
Last problem. It's not the first in the line. It's the last one. Non-paying customers. This has been improved dramatically. Just check circuitos.gov.do and see details about any circuit you select, you can see % of paying customers. Losses from non-payment are 15%.

When you have losses on-network on high and medium tension networks (before hitting local distribution network) of over 30%, AND you pay generators huge over-the-market rates, THEN you have a huge problem and that's why it is DIFFICULT for anybody to fix it.

One solution: Expropriate all the power plants. Get some professional managers from Colombia, Brazil, or even the US. Level of paying customers is increasing by the day, but you need to reduce losses on transmission (investments) and renegotiate the current power-generator contracts (or expropriate) in order to reduce generation costs.

It is ridiculous that you a private enterprise (Falconbridge Bonao, e.j.) can negotiate directly with a power plant (by having an exemption from the regulatory body to be a "non-regulated user") and can BUY the energy cheaper than the government (CDEE) from the same power plant. Not only you are taking the energy that households and other regulated users including businesses need, you are getting energy much cheaper than the very government state owned electric corporation.
 

Castle

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Sep 1, 2012
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Yeah, generators are the devil, I agree. But governments have been pu$$ies. This would not be the first nor the last contract that is severed because of unfair conditions. Countries do it all the time. Hell, even the DR did it with Union Fenosa a few years ago. Big deal. Why can't this one be severed also?. I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate power companies that would be glad to do business with the country on fair basis. DR is a small country with relatively little consumption, so it would not be that hard to meet the KW/H demands. So I would say:

Problem One: Government complicity.

And then, all the others...
 
Dec 26, 2011
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Yeah, generators are the devil, I agree. But governments have been pu$$ies. This would not be the first nor the last contract that is severed because of unfair conditions. Countries do it all the time. Hell, even the DR did it with Union Fenosa a few years ago. Big deal. Why can't this one be severed also?. I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate power companies that would be glad to do business with the country on fair basis. DR is a small country with relatively little consumption, so it would not be that hard to meet the KW/H demands. So I would say:

Problem One: Government complicity.

And then, all the others...

Great article, Castle:

El fin de este escrito es resaltar ese complejo de inferioridad latente en nuestro pa?s y por ende llamar a la reflexi?n. Una naci?n plagada de l?deres acomplejados, y por lo tanto carentes de la fuerza de voluntad y determinaci?n necesarias para llevar a cabo acciones de gran envergadura. Una sociedad formadora de individuos emocionalmente incompletos, v?ctimas de la creencia de la soberbia como requisito fundamental para el ?xito personal. Personas enga?adas por ideas absurdas sobre la superaci?n basadas en deficiencias emocionales ancestrales que todav?a no han podido ser superadas.

El cruce de Isaac: L?deres acomplejados