The government has imposed heavy fines on Edenor and Edesur for nearly $ 500 million

The national regulator of electricity (RE) applied severe penalties against Edenor and Edesur energy distributors, whose coverage area includes the city of Buenos Aires and the suburbs of Buenos Aires.

The sanction, for a total of $ 460,953.5 million, corresponds to the biannual survey that the regulator carries out with companies, to evaluate the quality of service, as established during the public hearings.

Edesur was fined with $ 290,898,949.79, while Edenor must pay 170,054,507.31 pesoss.

The regulator has evaluated three articles determine compliance with the standards to which distributors must comply: Quality of technical service, which takes into account the frequency and duration of power outages (more than half of the fines), Technical quality of the product (voltage level and disturbances), and the Quality of commercial service, which evaluates response times for connecting new users, issuing the estimated invoice, claims for billing errors, or restoring the suspended supply for non-payment.

To measure the quality of technical service provided by the two distributors, ENRE uses two usage indicators at the international level: the average frequency of interruptions per semester user and the total duration of semester user interruptions.

For this indicator, fines were added for almost $ 260 million semester from March to August between those applied to Edenor ($ 154.5 million) and Edesur ($ 105,337.5 million), although for the latter company the the quality of the commercial service was pithy and that represented a sanction of $ 178.6 million during the period.

ENRE has specified that the concession contracts of the public electricity distribution service include a penalty system which is applied when dealers exceed quality tolerance limits established service.

"Since the users concerned are the recipients, the penalties applied to companies compensation, by adapting the cost paid by users for the quality actually provided by distributors, "he added.

Therefore, as part of the fines, the ENRE indicated thatThe money will be refunded to users victims through the bill, proportionally.

ENRE badyzed the results of EDENOR and EDESUR's semi-annual review of the violations. "departures to established levels", corresponding to the semester March-August 2018, the
the period after the global tariff revision (ITR), during which tariff, quality and investment conditions were fixed until 2021.

Where there were more and fewer courts

In the case of Edenor, the average frequency of interruption per user was 3.99 times in the semesterand the total duration of the break in the semester was 14.65 hours.

With regard to the affected areas, the cuts were minor -By quantity and duration- in the city ​​of Buenos Aires (communes 2, 12, 13, 14 and 15), with the exception of commune 11 (Devoto, Villa del Parque, St. Rita and Villa General Miter) and the party of Vicente López. In both cups most frequently in the suburbs of the metropolitan area of ​​Buenos Aires, as General Rodríguez, General Las Heras and Marcos Paz.

In regards to Edesur, the average frequency of interruption per user was 4.15 times in the semester, and the total duration of interruption of the semester was 14.41 hours.

By zone, the reductions were smaller – in quantity and duration – in the city of Buenos Aires (communes 1 to 10), while the interruptions were smaller. most frequently occurred in more distant neighborhoods of the city, such as San Vicente, Cañuelas and Berazategui.