DR1: More of the Same Regarding Energy

With headlines proclaiming an energy deal, the reader is quickly taken back to reality as the only deal that has been struck involves the creation of yet another commission to find a solution to the financial crisis that is affecting the Dominican energy sector. El Caribe says that the government, the power generators and the distributors met with the President and his economic and energy teams in Casa de Campo, La Romana, for over ten hours in an attempt to find some sort of resolution to the energy and financial problems plaguing the energy sector. New increases in the cost of energy were discarded off the bat. During the meeting, the main points of agreement were the need to reduce energy losses along the transmission lines, the need to boost the collection rate and the need to study the debt that the CDEEE and the Edes have with the power generators. Another outcome of the meeting was a ! plan to reduce the government's subsidies to the power distributors, but details were not forthcoming. The main points of the more heated debates were concerning the possibility of further electric rate increases, the deficit for the sector as programmed by the IMF for 2006 and the construction of the two coal-fired generation facilities. According to Hoy, the deal that came out of the meeting is basically one whereby the President calls upon the electricity distributors to reduce losses, both technical (transmission) and non-technical (due to high operating costs) and increase collection from their customers. The newly named commission will meet with representatives of the Madrid Accords as well as the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to see about lowering the cost of a kilowatt/hour.