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After almost three years and 10 months since the intervention of Electricaribe, by the Government, a situation that demanded millionaire resources from the public treasury to maintain the operation of the electric power service in seven departments of the Caribbean region, this Tuesday begins the process of long-awaited change of operators.
From the hands of President Iván Duque, the Aire company, new operator of the service in the departments of Atlántico, Magdalena and La Guajira, markets that were grouped in the process under the name of Caribe Sol; and the Afinia company, of the EPM Group, the new service operator in Bolívar, Cesar, Córdoba and Sucre, They will receive the keys to the companies to start operating firmly from zero hours on Thursday, October 1.
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At 10 a.m. this Tuesday, October 29, in Barranquilla the process will be formalized with the operator Aire, and at 1 pm the delivery ceremony with the company Afinia is scheduled, in Cartagena, as confirmed by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
The Minister of Mines and Energy, Diego Mesa Puyo, indicated that the cycle of low investments in the energy service will end, but made it clear that the change in the quality of the service will be gradual while the investments that have been made and the What the operators will do that, as they have indicated, will add 12.4 trillion pesos in 10 years, become a reality.
Tweaks needed to square the equation
And it is that the hot potato that the Government and taxpayers have in their hands since November 2016 with the intervention of Electricaribe, which to date has led to the Ministry of Finance having to lend 3.2 billion pesos to the Business Fund of the Superintendency of Public Services to guarantee the provision of energy service, the temperature rose with the coronavirus.
This led the authorities to rethink key aspects in regulatory matters in order to mitigate the risk that the sale of the markets to new operators (EPM for Caribe Mar and the Consorcio Energía de la Costa, made up of the Company de Energía de Pereira and Latin American Corp. for the Caribe Sol market.)
Following requests from the Colombian Association of Energy Distributors (Asocodis), the Western Energy Company, Caribe Sol de la Costa SAS, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Superservices, the first adjustment, which covers all energy distributors, consisted of modifying the loss reduction plans defined in resolution 015 of 2018 of the Energy and Gas Regulation Commission (Creg).
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The director of the Creg, Jorge Alberto Valencia, explains that compliance with the path of energy losses could be affected by external reasons such as the significant and unanticipated reduction in the consumption of large users, caused by the economic brake that isolation implied. mandatory preventive.
According to the official, dDue to the fact that with the situation it is not clear what will be the future behavior of demand or the situation of the companies in the coming months, It was defined that non-compliance with the 2020 and 2021 goals will not imply return of resources (via invoice) to users, but the final goal was not changed.
In other words, by 2022, companies must reach the expected value for that year, which will involve them making a significant effort to catch up.
The second adjustment, specific to the coastal market, was a decree and resolution issued by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, which authorized a 20 percent increase in the base charge for energy trading in effect in 2020At the same time, 300 basis points (3 percentage points) will be added to the monthly result of the portfolio risk calculation.
Industry sources explain that this increase could cost users of these markets at least 200,000 million pesos, due to a 3 percent increase in bills.
However, users can take advantage of a tariff option to defer payment to several months, paying an interest rate. In the case of Electricaribe, a rise in rates implies an increase in subsidies, since of the total users, 78 percent are from strata 1, 2 and 3.
According to the Superservicios tariff bulletin, in the first quarter, among the three companies with the highest number of users – EPM, Codensa and Electricaribe, the latter had the highest marketing cost (68 pesos per kilowatt).
The document indicates that Electricaribe “It presents the highest percentage of portfolio risk premium for customer service in special areas in the group, with a difference of up to 16 percentage points compared to EPM, which also serves users in special areas.
In the draft prior to the issuance of the decree, the Ministry of Mines and Energy revealed that the actual collection on the Coast for strata 1 and 2 has dropped 22 percent compared to the expected level, 8 percent for strata 3 and 4, an 11 percent in strata 5 and 6; and 33 percent for the industrial and commercial sector.
And arguing that today Electricaribe’s commercialization charge may be 30 percent below the national average, one consulted said that “there is no way that all that amount of silver is invested in the Coast and it is not seen in rates.”
Behind closed doors
But a few hours after the keys are handed over to the new operators, the terms of the share acquisition contract to be signed by the Government on the closing date (September 30 or October 1) remain uncertain for public opinion with the two new operators, since what was negotiated there was subject to a confidentiality agreement with which the Executive kept the terms of the process reserved, and about which there is no certainty that they are known.
However, prior to the delivery, the Comptroller General of the Republic made a detailed review of the guarantee scheme that will be agreed with each operator, to recommend requesting bank guarantees, immediately enforceable, to ensure the real execution of the investments, how it works with the transmission projects called by the Mining and Energy Planning Unit (Upme).
The director of the Creg, Jorge Valencia, says that the entity is oblivious to the investment commitments that are finally agreed, since its function is to ensure that the goals of quality of service and reduction of losses are met, whose non-compliance removes them income to operators.
For now, the guide for this process is the regulation of receipt of offers and award of markets, of March 19 of this year, which indicates that to guarantee the execution of the minimum investment plan, each investor has two options: to make a guarantee capitalization (the definition and scope of which is not known and will be given in the acquisition contract) or to make a base capitalization, providing a guarantee of minimum investment, a point that is the object of analysis at the Comptroller’s Office.
This document establishes that when signing the contract, each successful bidder must pay the value offered in the auction, capitalize the company and substitute the necessary energy purchase guarantees (these are banking) with the wholesale energy market (generators).
And also, assuming that the operation is closed this year, it determines that starting March 2021 the guarantee of each operator will be 10 percent of the investment plan of the second year after the contract is signed and in 2022 the same percentage of the plan investment of the third year.
Even though it does not develop its application form, the regulation defined a certificate of financial closure, under which it is demonstrated that each operator has a credit contract for 66 percent of the investment plan for the second year and 33 percent of the third party’s investments. Likewise, the regulation defined a certificate of availability of funds.
Companies have already submitted a tariff file
In application of the transitory regulation for the Coast, EPM and Caribe Sol de la Costa have already submitted their tariff file to the Energy and Gas Regulation Commission.
EL TIEMPO consulted the two new operators on the matter and on the energy increases derived from the investments proposed. In the case of Caribe Sol, the manager of the Pereira Energy Company, Yulieth Porras, said that “until the closing date there is a confidentiality clause that does not allow us to express ourselves about the process.”
For its part, EPM explained that the investments of the first five years the resources to be invested in Caribe Mar would total 4 billion pesos and 8 billion in the first 10 years.
When asked about the increase in rates for Córdoba, Sucre, Bolívar and Cesar, the company will be moderate and that increases in distribution and commercialization may be deferred in several periods.
And he added that to face the levels of fraud and delinquencies in subnormal markets, The document presented contains actions such as the installation of systems that allow shielding the network to avoid fraud and alternatives such as prepayment, where users use the service according to the way they receive their income, doing self-management according to real payment capacity, which is complemented with a social strategy.
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