Esta nota trata dos temas íntimamente interrelacionados con los mercados emergentes de la Base de la Pyrámide: creemos que 1) el modo de penalizar el robo eléctrico propuesto por CDEEE es ineficaz e insostenible y 2) el riesgo en las inversiones en los medidores prepagados debe ser asumido por inversionistas privados. En ambos casos hay alternativas desarrollistas que no se deben frustrar.
Hace diez años vislumbré un mercado emergente de electricidad para los dominicanos. Hace tres años vislumbré un país sin apagones para los dominicanos. Hace un año vislumbré que ese mercado es para todo el mundo en desarrollo y que los dominicanos tenemos ventajas comparativas para ser los más avanzados al respecto.
Como parte de mi propuesta de un diálogo generativo, hoy escribí el comentario Emerging Technology Transforming the Power Industry, en que se desprende que las tarifas basadas en el desempeño (PBRs, por sus siglas en Inglés) orientados a la distribuidora dan paso a precios diferenciados orientados al cliente emergentes.
Hoy también, McKinsey publica el artículo “A grassroot approach to emerging-market consumers,” que traduzco como “Un acercamiento fundamental a los consumidores de mercados emergentes.” El artículo se inicia con la siguiente oración: “[C]uando las compañías encuentran como servir rentablemente a los consumidores de bajos ingresos en los países en desarrollo, todo el mundo gana: los desafortunados ganan acceso a productos y servicios que el sector privado está mejor posicionado para entregar, mientras las compañías aprovechan vastos nuevos mercados. Encima de eso, cuando sectores esenciales de la economía – tales como la banca, electricidad, telecomunicaciones, y agua – prosperan, transforman a los consumidores en productores y promueven el desarrollo económico.”
Ellos identifican la electricidad, agua y vivienda como sectores de baja rentabilidad para servir a los mercados de bajos ingresos, pero de alto impacto en el desarrollo de la comunidad. La solución a los retos de robos de electricidad, rotura de contadores, robos de cables, etc., de acuerdo al artículo de McKinsey, “yace en la comunidad. Enfrentar esos retos es un problema clásico principal agente: una variedad de agentes (consumidores y líderes de la comunidad) pueden actuar en formas que no van necesariamente en el mejor interés del principal (proveedores de productos y servicios)…la solución convencional… sería prohibitivamente costosa, las compañías necesitan modelos de negocios creativos para resolver el problema principal-agente de manera sostenible.” Meter a los que roban la electricidad a 5 años de prisión es una de esas soluciones no sostenibles, prohibitivamente costosas.
Una de las soluciones que están siendo impulsadas son los medidores prepagados. Me parecen una buena tecnología, siempre y cuando el suplidor asuma los costos del riesgo de obsolescencia que pueden traer con ellos. Me parece que se puede desarrollar un modelo de negocios rentable con ellos, por lo que recomiendo encarecidamente que no se pasen a tarifa. Es fundamental liberar el mercado minorista. Esta no es una idea nueva, como puede verse en mi carta al Dr. Carlos Rufin, cuando concebí la iniciativa de Un País Sin Apagones hace tres años y que aparece en la nota Actualización: El Origen de La Iniciativa UPSA.
En aquel entonces le dije al Dr. Rufin: “En varias conversaciones que hemos sostenido, te inclinas fuertemente a la implantación de medidores pre-pagados para los clientes de escasos recursos. Leí con gran interés el artículo "Electricidad para todos: Pensar en el propósito de una gran empresa de servicio público"[1] que describe la experiencia de Eskom, la "CDE" de Africa del Sur. Ellos innovaron y produjeron el medidor pre-pagado.”
Además, agregué lo siguiente: “Al igual que la innovación inherente en el modelo chileno trajo con el tiempo su propia necesidad de reforma [2], porque no responde bien a choques externos, o simplemente porque hay mejores soluciones hoy, el medidor pre-pagado es una muy buena solución que también debe competir con posibles soluciones mejores (esto hay que enfatizarlo - no se deben pasar a tarifa ningún medidor). En síntesis, sugiero dejar espacio a la innovación con PYMES locales compitiendo contra el mundo civilizado.
martes, diciembre 05, 2006
DL: Espejo de papel. - El fraude eléctrico
El sector eléctrico electrocuta. El Gobierno no le pone la mano temiendo la quemada, pero si no lo hace terminará por achicharrarse igual. La CDEEE envió al ejecutivo un proyecto de ley que busca penalizar el robo eléctrico. La iniciativa pone los dedos sobre el alambre fino del consumidor, pero no toca el grueso cable de la distribución. La ley contempla que las distribuidoras determinarían si las alteraciones en un contador son dolosas. Las EDES serían jueces de su causa. Una norma no es justa si penaliza una de las partes y exculpa a la otra por la misma falta.
Emerging Technology Transforming the Power Industry
Below is a comment to the article Technology Transforming Distribution, by Charles Newton , President, Newton-Evans Research Company, Inc., posted on 12/01/06 on EnergyPulse.
Mr. Newton offers important contributions to the suggestion introduced in the post Let's Get Out of Back Rooms to a Generative Dialogue. I believe he writes about a technology transformation trend to the power industry which goes well beyond distribution. He is actually talking about in his conclusion of "a new-school view that is customer focused." Said in another way he is writing about a new customer oriented paradigm of the industry that is emerging and thus an important element of the integral reform paradigm.
Mr. Newton mentions that studies suggest a causal link between reforms on performance based rates (PBRs) to spending increases in DA. As PBRs are utility focused, this is a clue to something that is emerging as customer focused. Look under the Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA) for the customer focused presentation Achieving Electricity Market Value through DR Technologies I made in the Fall of 2004, where on the slide # 10, I say “Ask and Respond: the Four Who to develop a set of self consistent market rules.”
The emerging rules are coherent with the last sentence of the article the author says “In the end, fewer outages and fewer complaints brought about by DA investments will certainly mean more revenue flow delivered to the bottom line," which should be paid by those who benefit, and not by the average consumer. It is the lack of such coherent rules that is a barrier to the "sense of urgency to upgrade the electric power T&D infrastructure" leading to the integral reform paradigm.
The author even see "some hopeful signs out there... yet it is more difficult, more cumbersome and perhaps more expensive to retrofit and upgrade the existing distribution grid... than to start afresh, as developing nations can do in their greenfields approach to development of an electric power grid." In this regard, I also made a PLMA presentation Dominican Republic Electricity Risk: A Customer Orientation in the Spring of 2005, where I envisioned the great opportunities that I see emerging. That presentation evolved into the article a Dominican strategy published by the IEEE Power & Energy Review, in the May-June, 2006, issue.
Mr. Newton gives another confirmation to go beyond utility focused PBRs to customer focused price differentiation when he says: "Their customers are sensing better power delivery performance, obtaining more reliable and more secure power delivery with minimized outage duration and frequency," which depends on the specific customer, because "[i]n the end, the cost of acquiring and installing DA will be more than offset by concrete improvements in power quality, an issue so vital to the key industrial and commercial accounts, and a cause of customer erosion and lost revenues for the utility."
The emerging paradigm I believe is electricity without price controls (EWPC), as it is evolving so far in my comments on EnergyPulse under many articles, and in the GMH Blog. Under EWPC, the regulator and the distributor will cease to be intermediaries as retailers take their jobs to develop business design innovations to compete with other retailers on a new value chain, as explained in the article An Alternative Business Case for Demand Response, which makes me strongly believe that My iPod is on the Demand Side.
Mr. Newton offers important contributions to the suggestion introduced in the post Let's Get Out of Back Rooms to a Generative Dialogue. I believe he writes about a technology transformation trend to the power industry which goes well beyond distribution. He is actually talking about in his conclusion of "a new-school view that is customer focused." Said in another way he is writing about a new customer oriented paradigm of the industry that is emerging and thus an important element of the integral reform paradigm.
Mr. Newton mentions that studies suggest a causal link between reforms on performance based rates (PBRs) to spending increases in DA. As PBRs are utility focused, this is a clue to something that is emerging as customer focused. Look under the Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA) for the customer focused presentation Achieving Electricity Market Value through DR Technologies I made in the Fall of 2004, where on the slide # 10, I say “Ask and Respond: the Four Who to develop a set of self consistent market rules.”
The emerging rules are coherent with the last sentence of the article the author says “In the end, fewer outages and fewer complaints brought about by DA investments will certainly mean more revenue flow delivered to the bottom line," which should be paid by those who benefit, and not by the average consumer. It is the lack of such coherent rules that is a barrier to the "sense of urgency to upgrade the electric power T&D infrastructure" leading to the integral reform paradigm.
The author even see "some hopeful signs out there... yet it is more difficult, more cumbersome and perhaps more expensive to retrofit and upgrade the existing distribution grid... than to start afresh, as developing nations can do in their greenfields approach to development of an electric power grid." In this regard, I also made a PLMA presentation Dominican Republic Electricity Risk: A Customer Orientation in the Spring of 2005, where I envisioned the great opportunities that I see emerging. That presentation evolved into the article a Dominican strategy published by the IEEE Power & Energy Review, in the May-June, 2006, issue.
Mr. Newton gives another confirmation to go beyond utility focused PBRs to customer focused price differentiation when he says: "Their customers are sensing better power delivery performance, obtaining more reliable and more secure power delivery with minimized outage duration and frequency," which depends on the specific customer, because "[i]n the end, the cost of acquiring and installing DA will be more than offset by concrete improvements in power quality, an issue so vital to the key industrial and commercial accounts, and a cause of customer erosion and lost revenues for the utility."
The emerging paradigm I believe is electricity without price controls (EWPC), as it is evolving so far in my comments on EnergyPulse under many articles, and in the GMH Blog. Under EWPC, the regulator and the distributor will cease to be intermediaries as retailers take their jobs to develop business design innovations to compete with other retailers on a new value chain, as explained in the article An Alternative Business Case for Demand Response, which makes me strongly believe that My iPod is on the Demand Side.
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