2025News

Programmed blackouts to halt, Marranzini announces advances in collections

Celso Marranzini, president of the Unified Council of Electricity Distribution Companies (CUED), announced on Thursday, 20 February 2025, that scheduled power outages (or supply control) have been suspended to avoid impacting paying customers.

“We have suspended it,” said Marranzini, adding that the measure has not been “completely discarded.” “We are implementing other actions that we believe may yield better results.”

Marranzini explained that the supply control system poses a challenge for the electricity sector, as it “affects the paying customer versus the non-paying customer.”

Following a recent meeting of the Unified Council of Electricity Distributors (CUED), electricity sector head Celso Marranzini reported that the different electricity distributors had collected US$2.040 billion per year over the last two years. This amount was nearly half a billion dollars more than the average yearly collection between 2018 and 2021.

A great deal of this impressive improvement was attributed to the installation of 550,000 electric meters of the latest generation. In the Dominican Republic, most outside major urban centers did not pay for power served. The new meters allow for remote billing and remote disconnection. Internet platforms also provide ease of payment without necessarily going to an office or some other physical place. For 2025, a similar number of meters are expected to be placed in service.

Marranzini also announced that there will be some US$650 million in new projects dedicated to more efficient transmission networks and infrastructure. The projects are being financed by the
Interamerican Development Bank (IADB), the World Bank, and other multilateral entities.

Read more in Spanish:

Listin Diario
El Caribe

Esta Noche con Mariasela

24 February 2025