In the midst of the public hearing on electricity tariffs, in which the Minister of Energy, Eduardo Rodríguez Chirillo, stressed that the system is “on the verge of collapse”, and the country’s two utility distributors, Edenor and Edesur, have specified the level of increases that the tariffs should have for the operation of the enterprise.
Therefore, Edenor raised an annual revenue requirement of $521,303 million, which implies an average bill increase of 89% for 80% of its customers.
According to the information presented, 80% of Edenor’s customers (2.3 million customers) will receive an average ticket of $7,619, while for the 10% of high consumers the average will be 33,771 dollars and for the remaining 10%, with higher consumption, it will be on average 68,425 dollars, always respecting consumption similar to those recorded.
“In major consumer sectors this implies an average increase of 140%, well below increases seen in other sectors of the economy, or even in other mass consumption services such as cable TV or the Internet,” according to the company .
According to a company statement, “Edenor does not receive subsidies from the national government. The company is the collection agent and the one who issues the invoice, but the reality is that of every invoice charged to the user, they only receive 29% of the total. The rest corresponds to generation (47%), taxes (23%) and transport (1%),” he explained.
“With the new amounts proposed, Edenor will receive only $2,209 per average invoice, the equivalent of the cost of a bottle of soda,” he compared. Furthermore, the distributor has proposed a system of periodic tariff updates, in line with the inflationary process that the country faces.
Edenor distributes 20% of the electricity consumed and provides the electricity service 3.3 million customers which means, taking into account the latest census, around 9 million people.
As for Edesur, the country’s other large distributor which supplies 20% of the country’s demand, indicated in a presentation that “the public hearing concerns only the impact of inflation on Edesur’s remuneration and not the conclusion of a tariff review process”.
The company also considers it “It is essential to initiate and complete a tariff review process Complete to be able to align the remuneration, the update mechanism and the quality level.”
“AND necessary to recompose the rate, but considering the general economic situation, which makes it essential to simultaneously implement a social tariff and efficiency plans that help those who really need it,” he underlined.
According to Edesur’s proposal, “revenues must be sufficient and timely to cover operating, capital and fiscal costs.” According to their numbers, the company’s revenue represents about 27% of the bill.
The company also underlined that “it is necessary to resolve pending issues from previous periods. And “in the future the tariff will have to consider the necessary investments in the resilience of the networks and in the development of the High Voltage network with multi-year planning, analyzing the creation of regulatory instruments with specific purposes to guarantee the realization of these works”, he declared, among ‘other, in a public hearing.
Source: Clarin
