SANTO DOMINGO.-  Dominican Republic’s major power company has made such large, long term investments that it’s “here to stay” in the country’s historically volatile energy market.

AES Dominicana, the local subsidiary of the Virginia, U.S.-based multinational AES, has been in the country for 10 ten years and its investments range from partnering with the Government in existent power plants to importing cheaper fuels aimed at lowering its operating costs, and passing on the savings to customers.

In an exclusive interview Thursday with Dominican Today, AES Dominicana president Marcos De la Rosa said the main reason for the expensive light bill here is because 90 percent of the electricity comes from plants that use petroleum-based fuels, and not from the “price gouging” that many people blame it on.

He said that’s the reason AES confides in natural gas as a clean-burning fuel, for which it converted the plant at Los Mina to use it instead of the more expensive diesel. “We want the people to understand what all this means for them. It’s going to reflect on their electric bill.”

He also sees the need to “institutionalize” the country’s energy industry, where government agencies carry out their function as the regulator and the power companies can compete fairly to provide customers with affordable electricity.

Bolster power lines, link isolated systems, reduce theft

De la Rosa lists what AES sees as the country’s major challenges in the energy sector, starting with the need to improve the power lines. “That would lower the amount of energy wasted within the grid,” a loss the electrical engineer places among the world’s highest. “In this country 40 percent of the electric energy produced is lost along the way, and 90 percent of that is from theft."

To meet the challenges, AES does its part by bringing seven tankers laden with 160,000 cubic meters of natural gas per year from Trinidad & Tobago, in addition to the coal it uses in the Itabo industrial park, just west of Santo Domingo.

He said AES’s US$200 million spent on the Itabo plants turned that facility around, from a complex which put out a mere 30 percent of its capacity to again become the country’s top generator.

De la Rosa also said AES will begin construction of installations to transport natural gas in a liquid state using cryogenic tanker trucks this year, to expand the use of the fuel for vehicles in a partnership with the company Linea Clave, which already built the first station to supply automobiles.

Another major  investment is the construction of a gas pipeline from the port at Caucedo to the city San Pedro (east), to supply the AES power plant there.

A responsibility assumed with a passion

The Venezuelan-born, Harvard-educated executive gleams when talking about his responsibilities in the country, and when questioned about the incidents in which his company has been involved with here, he rebuffs the allegations with details unabashedly revealing his “passion” for contributing to solve the problems of one of the country’s major and most troubled industries.

De la Rosa adds that critics of the use of coal in power plants must understand that it’s a fuel that can’t be discarded, and AES’s use of technology aims to reduce the dust and CO2 emissions associated with it. “If it weren’t for AES’ participation in the energy generation this country’s market would be chaos.”