Board of Directors suspends quarterly application that recognizes thermal cost in electricity

This Aresep release was published using machine translation.

Bull. 62-2023, September 8. The Board of Directors of the Public Services Regulatory Authority (ARESEP) temporarily suspended the application of the methodology that recognizes the cost of thermal generation, in view of collective interest.

According to information provided by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), if this methodology were applied, price increases of 27.64% would be recorded for final consumers during the last quarter of the year.

The Board of Directors made the decision to suspend the application of the Methodology for the extraordinary adjustment in electricity in the cost of fuels and imports (CVG) on Wednesday, September 6, in which it suspends the start of the tariff study for the third quarter of 2023.

At this time, the ENSO Phenomenon (El Niño) has influenced the decrease in rainfall and has forced thermal generation, that is, by using fuels with a higher cost than hydro generation.

The Board of Directors is the highest body of ARESEP and has the power to approve regulatory instruments. In that sense, a change to the CVG methodology is already in process, which is in the public hearing process to recognize these costs once a year, and not every quarter as has been done.

According to the technical criteria of the Board, the annual frequency of the calculation would give greater stability to the rates throughout the year and would avoid shocks such as the one that is being mitigated with this measure.

ICE assured, in documents before the ARESEP Board of Directors, that they guarantee the energy supply and that their financial stability is not affected by suspending the application of the quarterly tariff adjustment.