SANTO DOMINGO. - The increases in electricity bills affecting thousands of Dominican households are not due to the heat, but to errors in consumption estimates made by distributors when meters malfunction, warned engineers Luis Ozuna and Luis Moquette, directors of Tecni Electric, a company specializing in electrical control, distribution and measurement.
During a conversation on the radio program “Qué tenemos radio”, both professionals explained that, although high temperatures may slightly influence consumption, they do not justify the abrupt increases that many users are experiencing.
Industrial engineer Luis Moquette, the company's logistics manager, explained that the electricity rate is made up of various factors, but stressed that "in many cases, the increases are not due to actual consumption, but to estimates made by the distributors when communication with the meters is interrupted.".
“Technically, you could say that sometimes they charge you for the power outage. It’s not a direct abuse, but an automatic projection by the system that assumes consumption remained the same while there was no connection to the meter,” Moquette explained.
For his part, electrical engineer Luis Ozuna, project supervisor at Tecni Electric, added that these adjustments are usually more frequent in summer, when high temperatures, greater use of refrigeration equipment and deficiencies in the distribution network coincide.
“It’s unrealistic for a household to double or triple its electricity consumption from one month to the next without having changed its lifestyle or increased the number of appliances installed. Heat can play a role, but it doesn’t explain such drastic increases,” Ozuna stated.
Both experts agreed that consumers should demand transparency and review their consumption patterns, because “we live in a Caribbean country, where the heat is constant, not in a climate that changes from extreme to extreme in a few months,” Moquette reminded.
