The Colombian Association of Large Industrial and Commercial Energy Consumers (Asoenergía) asked the National Government and the Energy and Gas Regulatory Commission (Creg) to take urgent measures to allow curb the rise in energy prices in Colombia.
(See: The ‘dark nightmare’ of a Colombian family due to its electricity bill).
In its Sectorial Report number 23, of February 2022, the association warns that the final price of electricity is associated with the indexer Producer Price Index (IPP), “which for the year 2021 increased by 18.6% and only in the month of January 2022 by 3.6%, generating the corresponding increase in the most important components of the rates that are generation, marketing and distribution. ; as well as in some gas components”.
“The rise in energy rates is strongly affecting the level of subsidies that the National Government has to provide to its beneficiaries in all public services, electricity and fuel gas, wreaking havoc on the country’s finances”, warned Sandra Fonseca, Executive Director of Asoenergía.
The union leader also stated that the increase in energy prices is widespread for all types of users, including the most vulnerable population, the industrial and commercial sectors, which are recently barely recovering from the years of the covid-119 health emergency and public order difficulties.
(See: Energy demand in February increased 3.72%).
According to the union, the purpose of a public service fee is to remunerate the service provided, so that the rate is broken down into certain parts that are present throughout the service market chain, “covering associated factors such as the infrastructure operations required for the provision of services, investments, maintenance, expansion plans, among others”.
“Asoenergía warns that the increase in the IPP indexer is not directly related to the increase in costs experienced by those who develop electricity or gas supply activities, which is allowing them to receive high rents at the expense of users, and that in the case of electricity generation is allowing them to define much higher price bases, which are and will have an impact on contract negotiations in this component in the near future”, highlighted Fonseca.
For this reason, he requested modernize the indexer associating it to the realities of particular costs, and adopt immediate measures such as establishing a control over the growth (a ceiling) of the IPP indexer that allows reduce the impact on energy rates for all types of users.
(See: Innovation: the key to the development of the energy sector).
“Long-term measures are required to propose the definition of a new indexer more in line with the reality of the increase in the costs of these services.”, he stressed.
(See: These are the firms that lead the energy distribution business).
BRIEFCASE
