Wind Power in Samana

[Squat]

Originally Posted by Dolores

Mr. Orsini is the best person to explain... but from what I read, Luz y Fuerza is the electricity distributor, not the owner of the wind park. Thus, another company made the investment. I do not know if Luz y Fuerza or Mr. Orsini is an investor in Generadora Eolica de Las Galeras, S.A., the generator company.

Also, we give the source of the information, Mr. Orsini.

In all fairness, another piece of news correcting this one should be available on DR1's Monday news... It is really unfair that such an abusive company as Luz&Fuerza gets free advertising in a worldwide renown website such as DR1 !

Let me repeat it again : Luz&Fuerza is charging 3 times the regular rates to its customers because they have the monopoly ! This is not honest !

I feel they don't deserve to be shown as environment friendly when they are ripping off their customers, especially for free !

I refer you all to that thread : Power costs
where it has been proven that it is indeed cheaper to pay 3 or 4 pesos per KWh and have a good inverter as backup than being ripped off by Luz&Fuerza. In this thread I described my power consumption, trying to save as much as I can. On the other hand, Mr.Orsini has the cynicism to raise his rates while at the same time announcing this whole wind power thing...

[Squat]

I really hope Mr.Orsini doesn't remain silent ! He has to post in this thread, now that we all know he is reading it, because Dolores sent it to him !

Come on, tell us the truth !

[GALK]

Originally Posted by Squat

I pay 12.75RD$, because I don't use 200KWh per month (I use a 175 average). If I would consume anything above 200KWh per month, I would pay 13.75RD$ per KWh. I am a Luz&Fuerza customer from Las Terrenas.

I resent the announcement published in the DR1 news as being completely hypocritical because I have been told by Luz&Fuerza that they couldn't afford to invest into more "bunker" (cheaper fuel) planta. Right now in Las Terrenas, they have 4 plantas, 1 runs with "bunker" fuel, and the 3 others runs with gasoil. Gasoil is much more expensive than "bunker" fuel.

I believe someone is lying at Luz&Fuerza, and I would like Mr.Orsini to post here and explain himself.

-How can they invest so much money on wind generator and forget about a simple investment that could lower considerably their customers bill ???

Just for reference: With EDESUR you would pay 175Kwh x 3.12RD$ = 546RD$.
L&F charge you four times. They must make a lot of profit as even EDESUR reports profit and they charge less.

[Squat]

Originally Posted by GALK

Just for reference: With EDESUR you would pay 175Kwh x 3.12RD$ = 546RD$.
L&F charge you four times. They must make a lot of profit as even EDESUR reports profit and they charge less.

FYI, I used to be charged 10.75RD$ until July 2007, when the rate went up to 12.75RD$/KWh. The reason that was given to me was that gasoil is up, so power is up. The person in charge told me that it would cost 300 millions of RD$ to change their 3 gasoil plantas to 3 "bunker" plantas. He then told me Luz&Fuerza doesn't have that kind of money.

[SamanaJon]

Well LyF recently purchased a new 600 kw (I think) for Las Galeras. They could have made plans to purcahse a HFO (heavy fuel oil) buring plant instead. I owuld think that they will soon need at a least 1.0 mw as thigs grow in the area. I have been to the Las Galeras Plant site, and it leaves much to be desired. Surely they are investing their money elsewhere. They don't even have a 24 hour number to report outages.

A 60 kw wind turbine will not put a dent in the overall production cost of electricty for the Las Galeras operation. They will need to have 3x that much on-line, inorder to actually begin passing along any saving to customers. That may be happening sometime next year, maybe....

[Squat]

I wanted to give a bit of feedback as well, since I am one of the heaviest complainer.

I received my power bill this morning, and it is noticeable that Luz&Fuerza lowered a bit their rates. In my case, since I use less than 200 KWh/month, I now pay 11.75RD$/KWh (from 12.75 last month).

I am wondering if Mr.Orsini is finally seeing the light... I am not sure...

On the other hand, I had an information about a private Spanish power company operating in Hato Mayor, and charging only 6.5RD$/KWh (that would be around 0.21US$). I am told this company had to install everything from scratch.

That means it is possible.

One more thing about our region, the Samaná Peninsula : it grows really fast ! In Las Terrenas, it seems that there's a new project starting every 5 minutes ! So if Luz&Fuerza doesn't follow this rhythm of development, some day, another company will pay whoever is in charge to get a permit to distribute electricity as well, and will drive Mr.Orsini to bankrupt, back to the Capital !

[aegap]

Originally Posted by SamanaJon

A 60 kw wind turbine will not put a dent in the overall production cost of electricty for the Las Galeras operation. They will need to have 3x that much on-line, inorder to actually begin passing along any saving to customers. That may be happening sometime next year, maybe....

The low rate quoted by DR1 is probably the whosale rate at which LyF buys the power from the people running the wind farm.

[SamanaJon]

Originally Posted by Dolores

Mr. Orsini is the best person to explain... but from what I read, Luz y Fuerza is the electricity distributor, not the owner of the wind park. Thus, another company made the investment. I do not know if Luz y Fuerza or Mr. Orsini is an investor in Generadora Eolica de Las Galeras, S.A., the generator company.

Also, we give the source of the information, Mr. Orsini.

I have yet to hear if LyF has addressed anyones concerns as to the topic. Anyone hear anything? I have called the main office in the Colonial Zone, but Mr. Orsini was not available. Updates on Wind Power in the DR? I know a large project (20mw) was shot down in Bavaro earlier 2007, when Rolando Bunster of CEPM, tried to build a Wind Farm.

[Dolores]

Orsini wrote to me at dr1, replying to your posts, but he wrote in Spanish, so I asked him to send me the response in English. He said he would have it translated. Once I get it, I will post it here. His response was complete with charts and news on what's coming.

[Squat]

Originally Posted by Dolores

Orsini wrote to me at dr1, replying to your posts, but he wrote in Spanish, so I asked him to send me the response in English. He said he would have it translated. Once I get it, I will post it here. His response was complete with charts and news on what's coming.

Please feel free to publish it in Spanish, as most of us read this language. You can always post it in English afterwards...