The eternal struggle to produce sufficient electricity is, somehow, always newsworthy. At yesterday’s meeting of the National Energy Commission ended with nary a flicker at the end of the blackout tunnel. According to the El Caribe, the only news are the plans and the analysis of the problems that affect the sector, although there is an initiative to better communications between generators, distributors and the authorities and clean up the image of the sector. 88% of the users are capable of paying for the energy consumed. Nevertheless, collections are earned from just 50% of the people, and, perhaps the most important part of the story, the remaining 38% are large consumers that don’t pay for the electricity they use. As it came out in the meeting, the highest levels of loss are coming from the big consumers, but the costs of the inefficiency of the distributors to collect their money is charged to the other clients. Apparently, this dilutes the traditional arguments that the poorest barrios, those that receive the subsidy, are the principal causes of the market deficit, currently valued at US$350 million. According to Ruben Montas and Francisco Mendez, the spokespersons for the NEC, the increases in the collection rates have permitted the Dominican Republic to access the first part of the US$250 million loan from the IDB to cover the deficit of the sector in 2006.
In a sister story carried in the Diario Libre, reporter Esteban Delgado writes that just 12% of the energy produced goes to 50% of the population. However, as was mentioned previously, the remaining 88% goes to people that could pay but 40% of them do not. The study, released by EdeEste, was the center of commentaries at the meeting called by the Association of Foreign Investors (ASIEX). An interesting point that was made is that now coal is as if not more expensive than Bunker-C, the petroleum product that fuels the largest generating facilities. Bunker-C is now 3.05 times more expensive then in 1999 and 2.05 times more expensive then at the time of the signing of the Madrid Agreement. Coal is 2.02 times higher than a year ago, 2.3 times higher than Madrid and 3.7 times higher than 1999.
The administrator of EdeSur told reporters from the Listin Diario that the renegotiations of the contracts with the power generators would save the distributors RD$2.4 billion. He said that the distributors are paying between US8? and US12? per kilowatt of electricity, with 90% of the electricity being purchased above the ten cent line.