American Expatriate Costa Rica

Industries concerned over increases in electricity rates

Employers grouped in the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica expressed concern about the increase in the cost of electricity.

We received the notification from ARESEP about an increase in rates as of April 2019 of 5.86%, which joins the one from January 2019 increase of (3.36%), this then entails more than an 8% increase in rates in general,”

said Enrique Egloff, president of the Chamber.

We have to express our concern about the rate increases. We have presented, together with the Uccaep, to the President of the Republic, a set of proposals for concrete actions to structurally reduce electricity and fuel rate, so that the economy can be reactivated and generate employment,”

added Egloff.

The Chamber of Industries, however, recognized the effort to reactivate the Medium Voltage Rate b (TMT-b), in this case for ICE clients, which was suspended in 2017, since this obeys the undeniable reality that power consumption for industrial consumers of high volumes, which have a very constant demand during the day, is a very different service to the low voltage customers who also consume in peaks, and since the service is different, the rate must be different.

The businessman, however, expressed the doubt as to why this rate is only for ICE clients and not for the industrial clients of the CNFL or of the remaining electricity distributors in the country.

crhoy.com