Industries want to halt talks over fee for unregulated users

Santo Domingo.- The Dominican Republic Association Industries (AIRD) and the National Unregulated Users Association (ANUNR) on   Wed. called for new calculations on the added value of electricity transmission, without complying with the agreements of the National Electricity Sector Reform Pact, would be a bad signal for the country and for the electricity sector’s future and asked to suspend the talks on the variation of the fee to the Non-Regulated Users.

“Increasing the transmission toll prior to the signing of the Pact would significantly affect the productive sectors since these would be the ones that would assume the costs of the electricity sector, which reduces the competitiveness of companies and the country as such,” the organizations said in a missive to Electricity Superintendent César Augusto Prieto.

They said the Pact itself establishes that “the SIE, within a period no longer than one year after the signing of the National Pact for the Reform of the Electricity Sector, will update and define the transmission fee of the ETED for the next four years, based in a technical and economic study.”

They indicated that any study, regulatory reform, proposal or discussion, whose objective is to impact the electric sector or be related to it “must be done taking into consideration what was agreed in the Electricity Pact, since it was the scenario from which all the decisions that tend to define the destiny of this important sector of the Dominican Republic “.

The AIRD and ANUNR said they await the date to be set to sign the consensus document, which establishes a road map towards development and competitiveness, “which has been an inclusive process.”

“The Pact was made to provide an electric service under the principles of universality, accessibility, efficiency, transparency, responsibility, continuity, reasonableness and fare equity, through operation in conditions of healthy competition, in accordance with the legal framework, legal certainty, promotion of synergies between public and private actors, the use of renewable energy, technological innovation … all for the benefit of sustainable national development.”