UTE presented to private wind power generators its idea of extend the sales contracts that are in force, in exchange for a drop in prices, with the aim of reducing “fixed costs” that the state must face every year. How you reported The Observer months ago, the entity handles the idea of extending the term of current contracts between 5 and 8 years. This and other general guidelines were presented to some 30 companies in a data room held at the end of May, and then the private companies had 15 days to submit suggestions and observations.
Now the technical group that formed UTE to address the issue is drafting the official call that must be approved by the Board. Once the call for the competitive process is open, the interested companies will have a term to present their proposals, which will be analyzed individually with each one of the generators, he explained to The Observer the representative of Cabildo Abierto in the Board of Directors of the entity, Enrique Pées Boz.
The president of UTE, Silvia Emaldi, stated weeks ago to El País that in principle the entity set itself the limit of the possibility of agreements for up to 500 megawatts of power with the aim of having the “most competitive proposals”. He explained that the private companies will be ordered according to the proposals that have “the highest net added value of price reduction, weighted by energy” generated, to then begin the negotiation process.
Currently, the state company pays between US$70 MWh and US$75 MWh on average for wind energy. In the annual equation, the set of contracts represents a “fixed cost of US$ 500 million”, according to what different authorities of the entity have indicated.
UTE buys most of its wind energy from private companies that have contracts with the energy entity, mostly for 20 years. Those agreements signed in different years of the last decade also contemplate that the entity has to pay for the energy that it does not use, but that the generators are in a position to supply.
Today there are 1,500 MW of wind power installed throughout the country, of which 1,000 MW belong to 100% private parks, and the rest are parks in which UTE has a stake or is 100% owner.
Industry sources consulted by The Observer They expressed that each company will have to analyze the entity’s proposal taking into account particular aspects such as, for example, that the wind turbines have technical conditions to be able to extend their useful life, that the conditions established in the financial contracts allow changes to be made, and thirdly , which effectively “is interested in stopping receiving money now to extend the contract later”.
What would be a good negotiation? What result do you want to reach? “No negotiation of this type is worth less than a 10% decrease in the costs that they are already charging us.. The first objective is to achieve that on January 1, 2023 we can reduce that 10% in rates by spending less to charge less. If I manage to lower the cost of my merchandise and I am willing, as a public company, to transfer that to the user, I lower 10% on one side and lower 10% on the other side”, Pées Boz had said in an interview with The Observer.
