Santo Domingo. - The Dominican Electrical Industry Association (ADIE) and the National Energy Commission (CNE) met Monday to evaluate the National Energetic Plan (PEN), which would include such key points as the optimization of the sector’s current structure, the topic of hydrocarbons and the alternate sources of energy needed to diversify the energetic matrix.

CNE president Enrique Ramirez said the work meeting with ADIE’s members is part of the first stage in the PEN’s formulation, since the recommendations by the generating sector and the other sectors which integrate the chain are fundamental to successfully implement any attempt to improve the industry.

Marco De la Rosa, president of ADIE and of AES Dominicana, said the plan’s general objective should be oriented toward providing a quality service, at a minimum cost and with long term sustainability.

He stressed that the power sector’s primary challenges in the Dominican Republic are “accessibility” and “affordability,” for all Dominicans to have access to the service and one which they can pay for.

De la Rosa said the PEN which the National Energy Commission promotes, must include an indicative plan to expand generation, which indicates not only the type of technology to use but the place where this new capacity needs to be installed and the materialization of the projects should be the result of a tender process which originate in the distributing companies based on their needs. “This indicative plan must consider as an element the hypotheses of growth demand, fuel prices, environmental impact and market variations, among others.”

“As to the demand, it’s fundamental to solve to the structural problem associated to the electricity theft and illegal connections,” De la Rosa said in a statement.

In that regard ADIE’s President hailed the authorities efforts has no doubt that those actions will improve the service’s quality in the medium term.

De la Rosa noted that once the electricity billing and robbery problems are solved, the next step should be to integrate to the system all those customers who’ve in the past opted to disconnect themselves from the grid and generate their own power. “The electrical sector is a system which takes advantage of economies of scale and when supply centers are integrated with all demand centers very important benefits can be obtained in service quality and prices.”

To reach it, the AES Dominicana CEO notes that “the confidence of industries and large customers needs to be recovered, who’ve become disconnected in the past, offering them quality service and stimulating them to reconnect by providing much more competitive prices than what self-generation represents.”

The ADIE representatives also stressed the importance of the electrical sector’s regulatory stability, the continuity of energetic plans and policies, the unrestricted enforcement of the State of Law, the predictability of the income of the companies and the equal treatment for all participant economic agents.

In the meeting, De la Rosa, for AES Dominicana; ADIE Executive vice-president Zaida Lugo Lovatón, as well as the power companies Seaboard general manager Armando Rodriguez, and CEPP general manager Marcos Cochón also reiterated their support for the new President of the National Energy Commission.

The National Energy Commission’s entire management team and the Economy Ministry;s representative, Vice minister Juan Monegro, were also present in the gathering .