The state electricity corporation, Corporación Dominicana de Electricidad will sign today a new contract with the Smith and Enron company that operates a 170 megawatt power plant in Puerto Plata. The agreement ends a long dispute over what the Fernández administration considered unfair contract terms. The firm agreed to lower the kilowatt/hour price and eliminate the clause based on which it was charging per installed capacity, not per power supplied. The power plant suffered several defects that consistently impeded it from supplying its full installed capacity, but the contract permitted it to bill regardless of whether it was supplying power or not. The government utility agreed to pay US$26 million of a demanded US$60 million debt. The conflict had gone to two-year long international arbitrage. Kevin Manning will sign for Smith Enron. The CDE also announced it has signed a contract with the French firm Alstom to construct seven substations and a 138,000 volt transmission line, for RD$150 million.
