Energy & Mines Minister Antonio Almonte announced advances towards streamling the procurement processes for the government-owned power distributors – EdeNorte, EdeSur and EdeEste.
Almonte says a tender will be called for these to jointly purchase materials and supplies. The plan is to reduce operating expenses and losses of the utilities. When interviewed on “Nosotros a las 8,” he made the announcement with Juan TH and George Rodriguez.
“Before, EDEs bought the same thing, each at a different price. The distributors do the same, distribute electricity. The meters can be the same, the transformers of the same brand, the cables, the vehicles they use, etc., then why were the distributors buying the same thing at different prices,” remarked Amonte. He expects that savings will be around 50% compared to the past administrations of the utilities by consolidating the procurement.
Almonte says efforts will advance to formalize more users of the electricity service. “If you do not have the population formally connected to the metered system, you cannot charge; If you don’t measure, you can’t bill and if you don’t bill, you can’t collect, either,” he said.
He stated that the loss reduction implies formalizing the connection of all Dominican homes and businesses to the system and that distributors can record customer consumption every month and issue invoices.
He noted that this will help reduce EDE losses by an average of 28 to 30% this year. He explained that Edenorte and Edesur currently have an average loss of 22% in power served and not billed. “We aspire for them to be well below 20% by the end of the year,” he said.
He said that EdeEste is the worst off, with almost 50% of persons and businesses served not paying for the service. He said the goal with this utility is to reduce these losses to 30% this year.
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Ministry of Energy & Mines
25 April 2021