What is the real problem about electricity supply in DR?

[Chris]

This thread is so wrongly placed in environment. It should be placed in a special forum "Government Bloopers"!

[gamana]

Originally Posted by A.Hidalgo

Very reasonable proposal, but can you tell us the sources for the "coastline mega resorts are the Kwatt guzzlers of the DR".

just have to look at it. The DR coastline is becoming or soon to be a non stop chain of hotels and resorts. We are talking about AC for all rooms, rstaurants, refrigeration equipments for restaurant and bars, pumps, 24hour common areas lights...etc.

That's a lot of Kwatts and a lot of Kwatt surges.

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by gamana

just have to look at it. The DR coastline is becoming or soon to be a non stop chain of hotels and resorts. We are talking about AC for all rooms, rstaurants, refrigeration equipments for restaurant and bars, pumps, 24hour common areas lights...etc.

That's a lot of Kwatts and a lot of Kwatt surges.

I'll bet they pay their bills.

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by Rick Snyder

Put this all together and maybe you can better understand the situation here as it pertains to electricity.

Rick

Thank you so much, Rick, for the post. It's a Great Read.

But the fundamental still remains: power costs more to produce than is paid for, and creates negative cash flow; hence all the fancy and torturous financing methods.

If the power generators would be paid for what they produced, would there still be a shortfall?

One reason power is so expensive to produce is because fuel needs to be imported (hydro excluded). That, like all other imports, gets to be expensive.

Again I ask of anyone: are the financial records of the power producres available? In the US most utilities are controlled and regulated, and the books are available, and rates are regulated and set based on those books.

[Rick Snyder]

Cobraboy,

1. Your welcome.
2. This is a falacy.
3. Yes.
4. If the hydro electric power plants were to produce at their maximum there would not be a problem like that presently behing faced.
5. No, this is a country that has very little transparency.

It must be remembered that the generating plants assured the government that if they were to pay was is owed that prices would come down. As the government has failed to pay their contracted bills -----------

[gary short]

Originally Posted by Rick Snyder

Cobraboy,

1. Your welcome.
2. This is a falacy.
3. Yes.
4. If the hydro electric power plants were to produce at their maximum there would not be a problem like that presently behing faced.
5. No, this is a country that has very little transparency.

It must be remembered that the generating plants assured the government that if they were to pay was is owed that prices would come down. As the government has failed to pay their contracted bills -----------

There is Hydro electric generation in the DR??????????

[Rick Snyder]

Gary I have a tough time determining when you're serious and when you're not. In case your serious then yes they have 9 hydroelectric power plants.

[Rafael Rothschild]

Rick:

Thanks for a great and very, very informative answer.

As a semi-outsider, it is incomprehensible to me, regardless of the limitations of the DR government, how things can remain the same for so long (my first trip to DR was in 1980)

If I read correctly beetwen the lines (and I think I do) some of my "compatriotas" from Spain, are still doing the very same things that Spain has been doing outside its borders for over 500 years.

I'm not surprised by this, because since my very first trip to DR, I was ashamed to be a spaniard.

What it is very hard for me to accept, in this day and age; and I could be wrong, but I still think that the current government is trying to correct something, which, throughout history and culture, is obviously very difficult to achieve.
Is it that difficult for some of the people in power, such as wealthy dominicans, expats, foreign investors, etc, etc.; with the resources and money they have, to try to help and make thinks, just a bit better for the rest of the poor dominicans.... just....just enough, so there is not such a disproporcionated separation, which almost (and I said almost) justifies crime, for whatever the reasons?

In many of this site threads, we have seen comments, such as: "a DR Chavez", etc, etc..... well, I really don't take these comments for granted, anymore that if the price of a gallon of gas goes up in the US to $10. It could mean, for sure, civil war. Yes civil war here in the good U.S. of A.

Why is it, that the poorer the country is, the more ignorant the capitalists are?

I know that this opens many doors, but, as a simple human being, who, as an agnostic, does not try to get to heaven in his late years; I'm however intrigued by this behaviour, which I choose to name "lack of intelligent compassion".

We can blame everyone and their broher, for whatever we choose to analyse; but it occurs to me, that the biggest blame lays with the people with more access to information, wealth and power, to correct all the ongoing problems.

[Don Juan]

In my estimation, Almost all poster here have come up with factual reasons for the power gap. No arguments there.
However,there is one issue or aspect to this dire problem that has not been addressed. And that is the government's lack of resolve to come up with the necessary measures to solution it. The state government has the ultimate say in what is and isn't done in any nation, IMF or World Bank, not withstanding.
Mostly everything has a solution. All that's needed is the ambition to accomplish it. For all the aforementioned reasons posted, DR still lacks the main ingredient in prospering this nation to incredible heights! And if Leonel feels that an unnecessary luxury like the METRO is more important to further our progress, then we MUST remove him from power. His priorities are wildly misplaced. And this is not the end to this money pit venture! It's safe to assume that once the metro line #1 is finished, naturally,#3 and #4, will follow and so on. When does it end?
Leonel is enamored with, and obsessed in turning SD into a mini Nuevayol with its' modern rapid transit system and such. Methinks Leonel has gone over the edge and needs to be removed and replaced with someone with more realistic/practical resolves to make our lives a lOT easier.
Question is, where do we find such a Dominicano?

Is Rick Snyder a Dominican citizen?

[Rick Snyder]

I think it is also important to point out the LF’s government had just sold Edenorte and Edesur to Union Fenosa in 1999 and 3 years later Mejía buys them back at a tremendous loss. It was because of this world wide opinionated mistake that the IMF backed out of supplying support. Because of the large number of Dominicans that were also against this buy-back they took the name of the company ‘Union Fenosa’ and started calling the deal the ‘Union Penosa’.

Though or because the IMF wouldn’t offer their support in Feb of 2004 the World Bank came in and approved a $100 million loan to help the Dominican government pay for electricity. In June 2004, however, after disbursing $50 million of the loan, the bank suspended the remainder until either the outgoing or incoming administration could come up with a cohesive plan for paying the electricity bills. Of course I think it was just a case of them wanting to keep as much money as possible in the coffers to steal as the transition from one party to another took place but that’s my opinion.

The problem of the black-out seems to stem from the monies that are owed to the generation plants by the government. Those plants say that they can’t pay for fuel to run their plants and therefore cut service to the distribution grid. Needless to say the distribution companies are paying for electricity they receive but I have no idea as to what percentage of the electricity they receive that they pay for.


Some info;
http://www.iea.org/textbase/stats/pdf_graphs/DOELEC.pdf
http://www.peaklma.com/files/public/...56,1,Dominican Republic Electricity Risk: a Customer Orientation
Press Release: IMF Executive Board Completes Third and Fourth Reviews and Financing Assurances Review Under the Stand-By Arrangement for the Dominican Republic
CDM: El Guanillo Wind Farm
CDM: Cabo Engaño Wind Project
CDM: Juancho – Los Cocos wind farm project, 100 MW

Rick