¿Hay posibilidad de que haya un apagón en Colombia?

WEBVTT

1
00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:06.599
The day to day is full of
urgent news, noise, polemics and fanfare.

2
00:00:06.599 --> 00:00:11.240
But for the quietness, the analysis
and what we like to call slow

3
00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:18.719
- cooking journalism are my questions,
an average rush program made by KFAM inspiring

4
00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:31.079
smiles. The world is going through
a worrying stage of global warming, and

5
00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:34.719
that has brought a dry and heat
wave in Colombia. What concerns the power

6
00:00:34.759 --> 00:00:40.799
generating companies. An electric power outage
is possible in the country. Why the

7
00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:46.640
electric service has raised its price for
this chapter. We spoke with Angélica Gómez,

8
00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:51.640
journalist and co- founder of Economy
for the People, with Erasmozuleta,

9
00:00:51.799 --> 00:00:56.799
Governor of Córdoba, with Omar Prias, director of the Regulatory Commission for Energy

10
00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:00.679
and Gas Creck, and with Natalia
Gutierrez, President of the Colombian Sondas and

11
00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:07.319
power generators to Colgén. I'
m Roberto Pombo. Welcome to chapter seventy

12
00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:12.280
- nine of my questions. I' m a fan of the unexpected consequences.

13
00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:19.400
I will be more precise situations inventions
or revolutions that result from an event

14
00:01:19.480 --> 00:01:23.319
that has little to do with it. Some call it a maripous effect.

15
00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:26.799
I' m going to tell you
a couple who marvel at me and surprise

16
00:01:26.799 --> 00:01:32.840
you today. The Camambert and Rockefort
are a couple of French cheeses very controversial

17
00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:37.560
because of their taste, which have
the certificate of origin denomination i e they

18
00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:42.079
must be made under certain very specific
standards, and one of them is the

19
00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:47.840
origin of the products with which they
are prepared. Then it can only be

20
00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:53.480
said that a Skamamberg or Rockefort cheese
is ripened in the cellars near Roquefort Sursson,

21
00:01:53.280 --> 00:02:00.319
south of Abeirón, Occitania, this
means that only a few giant manufacturers

22
00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:04.680
now have almost the monopoly of cheese
production, which in turn has diminished the

23
00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:09.520
diversity of microorganisms in fungi used to
mature the product, i e the longo

24
00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:17.520
vinicillum. Roqueforti, that is,
the law of designation of origin that was

25
00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:23.120
established in one thousand nine hundred and
twenty- five, is about to cause

26
00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:28.719
a type of fungi to die out
along with a couple of cheese species and

27
00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:31.479
a closer example. And clear of
this butterfly effect, one of the most

28
00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:37.840
heard and still on the air radio
programs. The firefly would not have been

29
00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:40.800
possible, but one of the crudest
child phenomena in the history of Colombia was

30
00:02:42.159 --> 00:02:45.719
March of one thousand nine hundred ninety- two and the low water level in

31
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:50.560
the reservoirs the overruns of the mega
hydro- elastic project of the Guabio,

32
00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:55.599
the assessment of the peso against the
dollar, during all the crisis of electricity

33
00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:01.039
interconnection, whether that led the country
to a situation of insufficient electricity. All

34
00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:06.319
this took place at that time,
President César Gaviria, to decree a blackout,

35
00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:09.919
that is, a nine- hour
power outage in Bogotá, ten hours

36
00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:15.199
in six departments of the Atlantic coast
and up to eighteen hours daily in San

37
00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:21.360
Andrés and Providencia. It was these
nights without electricity and, consequently, without

38
00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.599
television, that led to the birth
of a program to accompany Colombians in the

39
00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:31.639
dark. Once back to normal power
supply. The program continues until today from

40
00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:35.240
January of one thousand nine hundred and
ninety- three, when it ended.

41
00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:39.719
The country has not experienced a blackout
or an energy crisis. However, a

42
00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:45.719
few months ago, while the country
and the planet were going through a heat

43
00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:50.319
crisis and a child phenomenon that hit
the country heavily, the ghost of a

44
00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:54.400
possible blackout appeared in various media and
in the warnings of experts and energy-

45
00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:59.520
generating companies. In October last year, the S S S S Ons,

46
00:03:59.639 --> 00:04:04.759
newspapers, news and Internet pages asked
themselves the same question. There' s

47
00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:09.199
a risk of a blackout. Those
of us who live what happened thirty-

48
00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:13.639
one years ago are set off a
kind of alarm inside our being We are

49
00:04:13.719 --> 00:04:17.680
scared of that possibility and I don' t even want to imagine the younger

50
00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:23.160
ones having to live hours without electricity
and with the cell phone downloaded. The

51
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:27.560
answer to the question is not accurate
and is full of quite a few conditionals.

52
00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:31.319
However, the first thing I thought
about was the very origin of the

53
00:04:31.319 --> 00:04:34.720
question, that is, why there
is a possibility that that would happen.

54
00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:42.079
The explanations are several and all add
up to fuel fear and headlines. The

55
00:04:42.199 --> 00:04:46.600
first applies to almost any sector of
the world economy and is the effect that

56
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.480
the invasion of Russia Ukraine had on
the cost of gas and on the coal

57
00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:55.560
market. According to experts, weight
assessment has also influenced, even though it

58
00:04:55.639 --> 00:05:00.319
has recovered a little. Of course, the drought that across the country at

59
00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:03.120
that time and that had the levels
of the reservoirs in red numbers financial problems

60
00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:08.480
of the companies that are along the
entire chain of generation and distribution of energy.

61
00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:15.120
But what has been pointed out by
several of these actors as one of

62
00:05:15.360 --> 00:05:19.639
the most crucial elements are the problems
facing new energy generation projects in order to

63
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:25.040
become operational. So, since this
is what is known as a multifactorial problem,

64
00:05:26.279 --> 00:05:29.639
that is, it has several reasons, we' re going to go

65
00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:34.000
looking at them in parts. Problems
in the energy sector did not start only

66
00:05:34.120 --> 00:05:39.480
one or two years ago. It
has been a chain of decisions and factors,

67
00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:43.000
but the most affected, as we
have almost always been the users.

68
00:05:43.879 --> 00:05:47.040
We are going back a few years
to that sad time of the pandemic.

69
00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:51.720
In two thousand twenty, President Iván
Duque implemented what is known as a tariff

70
00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:58.160
option, a mechanism to help alleviate
the abrupt increase in the electricity tariff through

71
00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:01.319
the accumulation of exits, which the
user will then pay in a wider period

72
00:06:01.519 --> 00:06:09.839
during the pandemic. The then President
issued Decree Five hundred and seventeen urging the

73
00:06:09.879 --> 00:06:15.959
Regulatory Commission for Energy and Gas CREK
to have temporary and extraordinary special schemes to

74
00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:24.160
defer payment of electricity bills for the
covid 19 pandemic. This meant that residents

75
00:06:24.279 --> 00:06:29.279
of tier one and tier two homes
could defer their electricity and fuel gas payments

76
00:06:29.319 --> 00:06:33.439
for up to thirty- six months. However, this measure has not been

77
00:06:33.519 --> 00:06:39.199
invented by the former Duke President since
a thousand nine hundred and ninety- four

78
00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:42.439
and has been used by other presidents
such asÁlvaro Urío and Juan Manuel Santos.

79
00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:46.759
However, the last time the measure
was used was the one that caused

80
00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:53.800
a stir from power generators and distributors
to President Petro himself have reacted. Why

81
00:06:53.920 --> 00:06:59.319
I' m going to try and
explain it. It happened that several electricity

82
00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:03.160
trading companies had to maintain this option
of deferred payments to installments as an option

83
00:07:03.279 --> 00:07:08.160
of payment, even after January of
two thousand twenty- two, until when

84
00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:12.560
it governed the mechanism. According to
Medio Colombia Check, the director of the

85
00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:16.959
energy engineering program of the Universidad Autónoma
de Bucaramanga César acevedo the measure was applied

86
00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:24.399
interchangeably by energy marketers as long as
the user did not state that he did

87
00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:30.319
not want to accept it. And
so far you will wonder how this affected

88
00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:34.279
the finances of the electricity distribution companies. Well, since I am an expert,

89
00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:40.240
I looked for Angélica Gómez, a
journalist who founded economics for the Peopul

90
00:07:40.279 --> 00:07:46.000
to explain to me and this told
me good. The tariff option is a

91
00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:49.600
mechanism that has been established in public
services for several decades and that is used

92
00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:57.800
in times of emergency to avoid precisely
situations such as the one of one thousand

93
00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:00.079
nine hundred ninety- two thousand nine
hundred ninety- three s NS. I

94
00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:03.639
' ll pay you in electric.
In this opportunity it was applied in two

95
00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:09.240
thousand twenty in the pandemic to prevent
a greater impact on the finances of Colombian

96
00:08:09.399 --> 00:08:13.519
households and in what I derive that
was in a big debts that the companies

97
00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:18.639
have or rather that we have the
consumers with the companies. That' s

98
00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:22.600
calculated at about five billion at the
moment alone for the Caribbean Coast is two

99
00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:28.800
five billion pesos and what it does
is add the financial pressure to companies to

100
00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:31.799
face situations like the one we'
re living now, the child phenomenon,

101
00:08:31.960 --> 00:08:37.279
which is a time of more expensive
energy, that companies must buy and distribute

102
00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:43.440
and then charge people and, at
the same time, continue to make the

103
00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:48.799
investments they need. The network to
stay in good condition and that the quality

104
00:08:48.919 --> 00:08:54.600
of service in most of the country
is maintained as it is in other regions,

105
00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:58.399
such as the Caribbean, as it
continues to improve. In August last

106
00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:03.759
year, when the phenomenon of the
child and the intense heat put the reservoir

107
00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:07.440
water reserves in red numbers, the
Colombian Association of Electrical Energy Distributors to SOCODIS

108
00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:13.120
warned in a letter from the Minister
of Miles de Energía, Andrés Camacho,

109
00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:16.759
and the director of the Energy and
Gas Regulatory Commission, José Fernando Prada,

110
00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:22.519
that these financial problems of energy distribution
companies are derived from the tariff option and

111
00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:26.679
other debts of state entities that are
estimated at two billion pesos that aggravate the

112
00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:35.000
demand in cash flow and liquidity.
What came next, of course, more

113
00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:39.080
than looking for a solution, was
to look for a culprit and former President

114
00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:43.200
Duque, Diego Mesa' s former
Minister of Energy Mines and President Petro began

115
00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:46.440
a discussion by throwing the hot Pope
at each other. The fight was like

116
00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:50.600
that. He first attacked President Petro, who on his x account wrote a

117
00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:56.200
long publication that the Presidency then resumed
as a press release. I will read

118
00:09:56.320 --> 00:10:01.799
only a few layers to Euro Comillas. Fare action was created by Duque,

119
00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:05.840
in a similar way as he did
with the deficit and the gasoline fund,

120
00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:11.399
but in electrical energy. It decided
lower electricity rates than it should normally charge

121
00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:15.759
in covid times but it did so
not from the utilities of the electricity sector,

122
00:10:15.879 --> 00:10:18.639
but as a debt of users that
accumulated and that must now pay quotes.

123
00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:28.440
In addition, he said that energy
marketing companies are, for the most

124
00:10:28.559 --> 00:10:33.039
part, public and to pay them
they expect the Government to go up the

125
00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:35.639
tariffs above what should be charged to
users normally, but in times of the

126
00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:41.679
child phenomenon. The former Minister Mesa, for his part, replied that at

127
00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:46.080
the end of his portfolio he had
paid all the debts for subsidies caused by

128
00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:50.720
two thousand twenty- two thousand twenty- one for a value of approximately eight

129
00:10:50.039 --> 00:10:56.240
four million pesos. He also added
that until July thirty- one of two

130
00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:01.039
thousand twenty- two, the balance
of subsidius of electricity was five hundred seventy

131
00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:03.639
- four zero million pesos and not
five billion pesos, as was to be

132
00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:09.600
believed. The former president Duque did
not stand still, although his response,

133
00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:13.759
also through his account of x more
than an argument, was an indirect and

134
00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:18.879
he repeated the publication of the supply
of mines with the message brocomillas to the

135
00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:22.919
smoke curtains of populism. Once again, the truth gives them a lesson The

136
00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:28.840
marketers are being broken by populism.
But, as the magazine Cambio explains,

137
00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:33.759
those payments that the former Minister Mesa
says, which were made, are part

138
00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:37.720
of the Ministry' s budget of
billions of energy and are made by mandate

139
00:11:37.720 --> 00:11:41.000
of the law. The five million
pesos that are at financial risk to energy

140
00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:46.720
distributors are part of the debt left
by the tariff option and that the previous

141
00:11:46.759 --> 00:11:50.240
government did not pay. However,
I think that the former President Duque had

142
00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:56.840
no choice other than to apply the
tariff option. All this meant that,

143
00:11:56.960 --> 00:12:00.600
in addition to a possible blackout,
an increase in the energy bill of all

144
00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:05.720
users was going to happen. The
Cret' s response was the publication for

145
00:12:05.799 --> 00:12:11.039
comments of the draft resolution to intervene
the prisoners of energy on the stock exchange

146
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:15.799
during the phenomenon of the child,
who sought quotation marks, to prevent the

147
00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:20.600
abuse of the dominant position of generators
participating in the energy exchange and the consequent

148
00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:24.480
formation of an inefficient exchange price I
close quotation marks. However, the criticisms

149
00:12:24.559 --> 00:12:28.519
did not wait, according to Alejandro
Lucio, director of Optimal Consultores Aurocomillas,

150
00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:35.840
told Portfolio Alejandro Lucio, a price
control that, regardless of whether it seeks

151
00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:39.200
to favor users, what it will
do is to exhaust the water reserves to

152
00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:46.720
the bad ones and substantially increase the
risk of rationing I close quotes. At

153
00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:50.759
this time, this decree has not
been implemented. However, the CREG said

154
00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:54.559
that it has not archived it and
continues to study it. This is also

155
00:12:54.679 --> 00:12:58.519
a rather entangled subject. That'
s why Ana Tal Gutierrez, president of

156
00:12:58.639 --> 00:13:03.480
the Colombian Suso of Energy Generators,
called me to colqué for what she told

157
00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:07.879
me, why the decree of the
CREE to regulate the price of energy is

158
00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:13.679
inconvenient. This answered me. We
are at a time where there is a

159
00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:18.360
lot of uncertainty and where we have
to build confidence again. The first thing

160
00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:22.960
is to have a Creo that works, because it has been the proactive regulation

161
00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:26.879
of this sector that has allowed us
not to shut down. But, moreover,

162
00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:30.919
it is very important that there are
signs of medium- and long-

163
00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:35.279
term public policy and norms to give
us investor confidence. The approach to the

164
00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:39.360
amendment of the law one hundred and
forty- two and one hundred and forty

165
00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:43.960
- three is worrying, because the
stakes to be made in this sector are

166
00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:48.600
very long- term and if there
is no certainty under which rules they will

167
00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:52.919
make it, it is very difficult
to make these investments. Now add all

168
00:13:52.039 --> 00:13:58.399
the measures that have diminished the benefits
of non- conventional renewables and add to

169
00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:05.559
this that projects that were planned and
auctioned have not entered. The medium-

170
00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:09.600
term energy auction seems to have been
cut short. Then we also call for

171
00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:15.720
a review of energy balances to ensure
the attention of demand and give the signals

172
00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:20.799
of public policy so that the generation
park expands and can maintain demand, which

173
00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:28.039
is growing in an important way in
the country. Complaints about the price of

174
00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:33.440
energy service in Colombia have been a
constant, especially on the coast, but

175
00:14:33.440 --> 00:14:37.600
since last year the increase has been
noticed more. In September of two thousand

176
00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:43.360
twenty- three, the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development( OCTE) published

177
00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:48.080
figures on energy inflation for the month
of July of that year, in which

178
00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:52.080
Colombia appears as the second country with
the highest inflation twenty- two comma three

179
00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:58.519
percent and Hungary is the first.
President Petro reacted to this data and said

180
00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:03.879
that I open Comillas is really a
transfer of wealth from the bagels, from

181
00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:09.279
all Colombians and from the entire productive
economy to six generators and two distributors rewarded

182
00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:16.759
by a formula of the CREK absurdly
abushiva close Comillas. Paradoxically, according to

183
00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:20.919
the Atlantic Intergremial Committee, the decree
of the crecte that we have just talked

184
00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:26.159
about would end up increasing by twenty- five percent of the energy tariffs on

185
00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:30.639
the Colombian Caribbean coast. For its
part, the Colombian Association of Large Energy,

186
00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:35.320
Industrial and Commercial Consumers warned that the
decree would end up transferring to consumers

187
00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:41.120
and users of the energy system a
millionaire on cost of two four million pesos.

188
00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:46.919
To the measure was also opposed the
league of users of public services of

189
00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:50.960
the Caribbean. In fact, in
November last year, the counteroria expressed its

190
00:15:50.039 --> 00:15:54.799
concern about the institutional vacuum of the
CREC due to the lack of expert commissioners,

191
00:15:56.200 --> 00:16:00.000
which puts the Commission at imminent risk
of blacking out institution and could end

192
00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:07.159
up affecting public finances and users'
pockets. In Cristiano it means that the

193
00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:11.799
prices of the electricity will rise.
About a month and a half ago,

194
00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:17.799
a decision of the Administrative Court of
Cundinamarca ordered the Government to appoint the six

195
00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:22.120
expert commissioners that make up the Commission
within no more than thirty days Today,

196
00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:26.600
the Government has appointed four experts,
but only one of them on property.

197
00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:32.759
Without these experts being appointed and taking
up their duties, the Commission cannot take

198
00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:37.200
such important decisions as to avoid,
for example, an event of blackout or

199
00:16:37.320 --> 00:16:41.879
an imminent rise in service prices in
the face of the child. The concern

200
00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:45.639
about the rise in the price of
energy is such that even the Attorney General

201
00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:51.399
got into the issue in her intervention
at the event fair rates for the Caribbean.

202
00:16:51.639 --> 00:16:55.879
In January of this year he said
you abrocomillas. Energy tariffs in this

203
00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:00.759
area of the country will be fair
when charity services are provided at a rational

204
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:04.559
cost and without discrimination, which will
only be possible when there is an inter

205
00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:11.720
- institutional unit that allows a balance
between economic sustainability and meeting the region'

206
00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:17.279
s energy needs. I' m
closing Comillas. Let' s hear what

207
00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:21.960
the solicitor said about the creck and
the energy prices on the coast. How

208
00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:26.559
many times all the citizens of the
Caribbean Coast have not contributed in any way

209
00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:30.720
to some great works at the national
level. Bogota Metro, Medellin Metro,

210
00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:37.599
and we could say many more good
situations for the country, where the whole

211
00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:44.079
country has contributed for the benefit of
a good work for a certain region.

212
00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:49.920
But how painful it may be that
once that solidarity is towards the Caribbean Coast,

213
00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:56.000
and what happens on the Caribbean Coast
is a case apart, because they

214
00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:00.559
are the most affected by the high
energy service and the most threatened by a

215
00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:07.200
possible blackout. A few days ago, the governor of the Atlantic, Eduardo

216
00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:11.200
Verano, referred to that problem and
proposed that the invoices of Aire and Afinia

217
00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:18.680
companies, which today the end users
assume, should be excluded. The Governor

218
00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:22.519
also stated that it was not negotiated
and that no sensible person would have accepted

219
00:18:22.599 --> 00:18:26.880
that the chorus of such losses should
be billed to the public. This is

220
00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:30.880
an old and complex problem that needs
to be addressed differently from the rest of

221
00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:34.000
the country. In other words,
the problem of energy costs on the coast

222
00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:38.880
must be solved as a case of
solidarity and it must be the State that

223
00:18:38.920 --> 00:18:44.119
finances and the high costs and,
in the midst of everything, this pull

224
00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:48.519
and loosen in which everyone wants fair
rates and fair payments. Atlántico, Magdalena,

225
00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:52.440
Guajira, César, Córdoba and Sucre
submitted a right of petition to the

226
00:18:52.559 --> 00:18:57.640
superintendence of services, with which they
seek to sue the tariff formula established by

227
00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:03.079
the CREE. In response, according
to them, to the cry of the

228
00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:08.759
people of the Costa for social justice, we seek Omar Prías, director of

229
00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:15.880
the CREC, to answer what must
be done so that the end users are

230
00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:18.960
not the ones who receive the energy
price sauces. That' s what he

231
00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:25.519
said. The first thing we need
to know is that in many regions electricity

232
00:19:25.559 --> 00:19:29.279
services with charges that have nothing to
do with service are included in bills.

233
00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:34.000
For example, in some municipalities public
lighting is charged and we charge for aspects

234
00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:38.200
of citizen security, toilet, aqueduct, choirs, electo, domesticos, seguros,

235
00:19:38.759 --> 00:19:42.880
funerarios. In short, some things
that are not of the service of

236
00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:47.960
energy and that can influence the imagination
of people believing that the invoice is only

237
00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:52.680
of the service of electricity. A
recent measure of the crez may have the

238
00:19:52.799 --> 00:20:00.000
rates salsas for opsuntarifaria. It is
also true that electricity companies have made long

239
00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:03.559
- term contrarys in order not to
expose users to fluctuations in the stock exchange.

240
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:07.440
He believes her. It has a
plan to review all components of the

241
00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:12.279
cost of the fee to look for
possible exchange factors to reduce electricity service bills.

242
00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:21.279
I also looked for the Governor of
Cordoba. You were musulette to ask

243
00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:29.000
why the Colombian coast needs differential energy
prices. This one answered me to the

244
00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:34.200
Caribbean Coast, but in particular,
our department of Cordoba must have differential rates

245
00:20:34.319 --> 00:20:41.359
in electricity or adjust the approved tariff
structure to the operator that is Afinia.

246
00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.880
There are many reasons, but perhaps
the most important is in our department we

247
00:20:47.160 --> 00:20:52.440
have two power generating companies Hurra and
Ge about ninety- nine percent public capital.

248
00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:57.079
Today we do not have a direct
benefit from these companies. In our

249
00:20:57.160 --> 00:21:02.799
apartment we are at sea level.
Climate conditions are therefore different from other regions.

250
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:10.400
We support the highest temperatures and thermal
sensations of our department that even exceed

251
00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:15.480
forty degrees Celsius. They are charging
us investments, expansion of unexecuted network,

252
00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:19.599
they charge us losses without doing the
respective management to avoid this loss. And

253
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:26.000
we have the least reliable, most
unstable and lowest quality service throughout the country.

254
00:21:27.519 --> 00:21:32.799
And what did the government say?
Responses to all these so- called

255
00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:37.079
approaches and concerns have been several.
In January, the Vice Minister of Energy

256
00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:41.119
Mines, Javier Campillo, said that
there will not be an increase in tariffs

257
00:21:41.160 --> 00:21:44.680
and there will not be a blackout. Andrés Camacho, Minister of Mines and

258
00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:49.000
Energy, said that to Bro Comillas, according to the simulations and projections that

259
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:53.559
the idea has, this period of
February will be the hardest. We would

260
00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:59.279
then have a preparation for these conditions
of two more months and the simulation we

261
00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:03.160
have of the reservoirs. If the
national energy system today allows us to affirm

262
00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:08.759
that we have energy supply for the
country, we can guarantee energy security by

263
00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:14.200
closing quotation marks. In January,
CRETA tested a transitional and voluntary measure that

264
00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:18.319
allows the direct hiring of marketers and
generators for a period of up to two

265
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:25.799
years. According to Omar Prias,
executive director of crec aurocomillas, typically twenty

266
00:22:25.880 --> 00:22:29.720
percent of the country' s energy
is traded on the stock market, while

267
00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:34.680
eighty percent is sold on pre-
established contracts. During events like the child,

268
00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:41.119
stock exchange prices tend to increase significantly
and suddenly with this initiative Our goal

269
00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:45.720
is to reduce this impact, so
that users do not experience abrupt increases in

270
00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:52.599
their bills I close quotes. Meanwhile, in Congress there are three initiatives that

271
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:59.000
seek to reduce energy tariff prices.
One of them is that of the Congressmen

272
00:22:59.079 --> 00:23:03.880
of the Caribbean Bank. They eradicated
a bill that seeks to regulate the cost

273
00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:08.519
of electricity. The text seeks to
modify the tariff formulas in order to reach

274
00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:11.920
a point of equilibrium in favor of
companies and users and in which technical and

275
00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:15.160
non- technical losses do not impact
the pocket of Colombians who are assumed by

276
00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:23.559
the operator. On the other hand, Senator Gustavo Moreno led a clean energy

277
00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:29.599
project that seeks to create a third
thermal floor to guarantee an equitable distribution of

278
00:23:29.720 --> 00:23:36.880
the minimum consumption of some Colombians.
According to the Superintendent of Public Services,

279
00:23:37.079 --> 00:23:41.920
Dagoberto Quiroga, in a column published
in a portfolio by Bro Comillas, the

280
00:23:41.039 --> 00:23:45.480
Constitution is explicit in that they are
one of the areas of the economy in

281
00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:51.319
which the State must intervene and that
regulation and inspection are the responsibility of the

282
00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:56.880
President of the Cierro Comillas Republic.
In other words, the reform wants to

283
00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:02.759
give more power to the President to
regulate the public services of Tinoremente, last

284
00:24:02.839 --> 00:24:06.359
Tuesday, the Minister of Energy Mines
and the Minister of Environments Use Mohammad,

285
00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:11.680
among other officials, were called to
debate political control in plenary of the Senate

286
00:24:11.720 --> 00:24:17.279
to discuss the tariffs of energy and
other public services. Minister Andrés Camacho said,

287
00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:22.319
among other things, not much more
concrete than abrocomillas. The Government of

288
00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:26.680
change assumed with responsibility the task of
achieving fair rates. We call for a

289
00:24:26.799 --> 00:24:33.119
national agreement for fair tariffs so that
all political sectors can join efforts to protect

290
00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:37.519
the users who shut down comillas,
the unions of energy generation and distribution,

291
00:24:37.799 --> 00:24:44.200
commandesco a coolgen andec a, socodis
and naturgas, who have also done their

292
00:24:44.279 --> 00:24:48.559
part. And in a letter addressed
to President Petro they sent him five proposals

293
00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:52.279
to lower users' energy rates in
the Caribbean. The first is that the

294
00:24:52.319 --> 00:24:56.559
two five trillion pesos that the users
of the Caribbean region have not paid to

295
00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:02.240
the companies for the option of NS
tariff and allocate a billion pesos to the

296
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:06.519
two providers of the energy service of
the region to cover fifty percent of the

297
00:25:06.599 --> 00:25:12.480
value of the average component of losses
over the next six months. The second

298
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:18.880
proposal of the unions is that there
be more conditions for new investments in current

299
00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:23.079
and future energy projects to enter the
operation, to ensure availability of natural gas,

300
00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:29.039
better security conditions and to appoint the
six experts commissioned from the CREC.

301
00:25:30.359 --> 00:25:34.039
The third proposal is to take care
of the energy service, to strengthen the

302
00:25:34.119 --> 00:25:38.880
penalties for energy theft, to reject
any act that the citizens take against the

303
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:45.440
infrastructure and to conduct an energy efficient
campaign. The fourth proposal is the payment

304
00:25:45.559 --> 00:25:51.799
of the official debt and of constitutionally
protected users, which amounts to about 350

305
00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:56.720
billion pesos. And the fifth proposal
is to reduce the value of local taxes,

306
00:25:56.920 --> 00:26:03.039
such as public lighting security tax.
Every actor has his proposal and,

307
00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:06.720
although everyone seems to want the same
thing, they do not agree on what

308
00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:11.599
is best. In conclusion, he
wants to talk about the clean energy projects

309
00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:17.000
that the government promoted and that have
been one of its campaign flags. In

310
00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:21.400
his speech during the opening of the
solar park, with four hundred thousand panels

311
00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:26.880
on the Cesar hill, the President
said that Bro Comillas, if we replace

312
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:32.920
all thermoelectrics with clean energy. Automatically, the tariferectrica is lowered in Colombia by

313
00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:36.319
closing quotation marks. In an event
on the subject, the Minister of Mines

314
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:40.640
also questioned that in the last ten
years it has not been possible to exceed

315
00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:45.680
two percent of non- conventional energy
sources without considering hydroelectric power. And although

316
00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:51.240
wind and solar energy projects have advanced
in their construction, their start- up

317
00:26:51.319 --> 00:26:56.319
and contribution of energy to the system
has not been the expected, according to

318
00:26:56.359 --> 00:27:00.799
Acorgén data, of the megawatt capacity
that was expected to contribute last year to

319
00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:04.519
the market. With these two technologies, only five percent came in. That

320
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:08.160
is, there is a big difference
between what is expected of solar and wind

321
00:27:08.240 --> 00:27:15.240
energy projects and what they are contributing, and this for several reasons. Then

322
00:27:15.680 --> 00:27:19.839
there' s a chance there'
s a blackout. According to estimates,

323
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:25.279
not in the short term, but
to follow the institutional vacuum in the belief

324
00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:29.880
that it cannot make decisions because it
does not have all the experts. As

325
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:33.440
long as new energy generation projects do
not come into full operation and contribute what

326
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:38.319
is expected, it may happen in
about two or three years, unlike thirty

327
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:42.400
- one years ago. This time
all entities, companies and all actors related

328
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:48.599
to electricity supply are aware of what
can happen. If climate conditions, the

329
00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:53.000
non- implementation of new electricity generation
projects and the financial crisis are not solved.

330
00:27:55.240 --> 00:27:59.480
We can go back to a blackout. Fortunately, we are in time

331
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:03.559
for the public and private sectors to
work hand in hand to prevent it from

332
00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:07.799
happening, even if this means preventing
the creation of another program such as the

333
00:28:07.799 --> 00:28:14.160
Lucierraga. I am Roberto Pombo and
this was chapter seventy- nine of my

334
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:18.920
questions. See you in the next
chapter from now on. This chapter of

335
00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:26.440
my questions is available on all podcast
platforms. This episode was made possible thanks

336
00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:33.720
to Kafam inspiring Smiles. Dirección Roberto
Pombo, Producción General, Juan Abel Gutiérrez,

337
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:38.319
Asesor editorial Daniel san Pero Espina scripts
juan Abel Gutiérrez y Johnny Rodríguez,

338
00:28:38.799 --> 00:28:45.559
Producción de campo Marcela Salazar y Lucía
Beltrán, postproducción de audio Carlos Bernar