El Dr. Francisco Castillo del CONEP siempre me ha dicho que no basta tener la razón; que a uno se la deben dar. Si sumamos esta idea a la idea de que nadie es profeta en su tierra, resultará evidente que parece que puedo ser un candidato a profeta, en el círculo más importante de la ingeniería eléctrica y electrónica del mundo: la sociedad de potencia del IEEE, de la cual soy miembro desde hace 35 años. Si le agregamos una tercera idea de que "de mejores lugares me han botado a mi," me hacen sentir satisfecho de que los poderosos intereses organizadores del Seminario me tienen mucho miedo. Estas tres ideas me hacen sentir muy orgulloso.
La estrategia dominicana no está siendo conocida en dicho seminario, que está diseñado para tomar decisiones. Las decisiones del sistema "sector eléctrico," se basan en una comprensión totalmente deficiente de los problemas que hemos tenido desde alrededor del 1970 y que generan una percepción bien fundada de que el problema no tiene arreglo por los grandes intereses que se mueven.
Mi propuesta (con toda modestia probablemente una profecía) que complementa "una Estrategia domincana," es muy simple: cambiar la estructura de la industria y el diseño del mercado para constituir un monopolio de transporte que se encargue de asegurar la expansión adecuada del sector a mínimo costo y liberar la comercialización de la electricidad al por mayor y al detalle. Adicionalmente, es necesario eliminar el vicio a los hidrocarburos que tiene la industria, modificando la ley para que las inversiones en electricidad renovable y en eficiencia en el consumo final (como la respuesta de la demanda) puedan ser viables.
A continuación, pueden leer los comentarios del Dr. Merryl que copio abajo:
My article argued that the financial, commercial, regulatory, and technical
system for delivering power in developed countries doesn't work in poorer
countries. We need to invent a different model to provide electricity in these
countries.
Timothy C. Trewyn suggests giving stock in the local power
system to the people it serves [see the July/August 2006 "Letters to the Editor"
column]. Having a stake in the utility would encourage the neighbors to fight
theft. It would make them capitalists. This would be easiest in many countries
where the government owns the utility. But the deal would have to be set up to
keep the nearest oligarch from buying up shares from the poor at fire-sale
prices.
Maybe the distribution company could be a cooperative whose
ownership runs with the land. But land titles are often unclear. Perhaps
ownership should be associated with the meter.
The May/June issue of this magazine contained a related letter from Egill
Benedikt Hreinsson and an article by José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. Both
addressed the issue of pricing power in poorer countries.
Hreinsson
suggests that the economist's favorite model—the intersection of supply and
demand curves—is too simpleminded. He says that each customer has his own demand
curve. Why shouldn't the tariff structure give each customer a different supply
curve too?
Vanderhorst-Silverio gives a classic example of why this is needed. About
30% of the power in the Dominican Republic is stolen. The rich and industry,
wanting more reliability—kilowatts during more hours or more kilowatthours—than
the utility can provide, install their own backup generation. This undoubtedly
costs more than power from the utility.
Figure 1 represents Vanderhorst-Silverio's story,
which could be repeated in a hundred countries. The solid supply curve is what
it costs the utility to provide power. The demand curve of the poor doesn't
intersect it. They can't afford to buy, so they steal. The rich and industry
want more energy (power during more hours) than the utility can provide. To get
it, they extend the supply curve with their own resources. These backup
generators cost more per kilowatt of load served and per kilowatthour than
centrally generated power.
A much better system would do what Hreinsson
suggests. It would provide supply curves (tariffs) that the poor could pay for
lower-grade power. The utility could provide higher-grade (more reliable, etc.)
power, at higher tariffs, to industry and the rich.
Many thanks to the editor for his visionary support of this discussion of a
very important social problem. Readers of this magazine are uniquely qualified
to help solve it.
Hyde M. Merrill
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