Martin Bidegaray
05/07/2021 19:23
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 05/07/2021 19:23
The increase in
electricity
and
gas
bills will
somehow impact the
pockets in June
, but its greatest weight will be since July.
This is because the distributors apply the new tariff tables once they are made official, but they also
require between 10 and 12 days to read the consumption
and send the
ballots
with the updated amounts.
In any case, the impact in June of electricity will be greater than that of gas due to an administrative issue.
The new electricity distribution rate scheme in Buenos Aires and the suburbs has been in force since May 1, while gas is expected to be ready during the week that starts on May 24.
Distributors make bimonthly readings of consumption, but send invoices with monthly maturities.
Those sent by Edenor and Edesur from next month will have a 9% increase in all consumption corresponding to May, but the part for April will not have an increase.
The regulator (Enre) established a new rate schedule from May 1, beyond the attempt of the Minister of Economy -Martín Guzmán- to displace the undersecretary of Electric Power, Federico Basualdo.
Customers of gas distributors will take even longer to feel the impact, which in this case will be national, because the national state regulates all concessions.
The government will authorize a
new gas rate schedule
during the last week of May.
It will be when the regulatory entity (Enargas) publishes the new tariff tables.
However, the invoices that arrive in June will have little of that increase.
Maybe the July ones if they take it completely.
For the numbers measured by Indec, the increase in public services will be between May, the moment of its application.
But that will take a month to be reflected in the pockets.
The electricity distributors send out tickets with the reading of the 60-day consumption of the users.
In general, the ballot they send expires between 12 days (first expiration) and 19 days later (second expiration).
The invoices from Edenor and Edesur that arrive in June will reflect the consumption of May, where the 9% increase already governs.
But
gas users
- who will experience a 6% average increase, according to official sources -
will be able to enjoy more time with frozen rates
.
"The new rate will take effect during the last week of May or before,"
explained official sources. “We are going to suppose a scenario in which the new rate schedule comes out on May 24. And that the last reading made by the gas distributor will be May 25. This invoice will have 1 day of the new tariff table and 59 of the previous tariff table ”, they clarified in Enargas, in charge of capturing this increase. As the distributors send it between 10 and 15 days after the last reading, gas bills that arrive on June 10, for example, will have almost no increase.
The ballots reflect bimesters.
The gas bills that cover the consumption of April and May will be almost without increases.
Those of May and June - which arrive in July - will already be a little higher.
But the weight of 6% will only be felt in August, when it covers June and July, two cold months and with the tariff correction applied.
The electricity rates in Buenos Aires have been frozen since February 2019. In the interior, there have already been increases in most of the provinces and those of Buenos Aires and the suburbs have tripled.
It is a kind of repetition of what already happened in 2015, when homes and businesses in the interior paid much more for electricity than homes in Buenos Aires or the suburbs.
In gas, the freeze comes from April 2019 and there it is national.
Enargas will apply a 6% recomposition of the rates in the "transportation and distribution" component.
If the Secretary of Energy wants an increase in the price of the gas itself -the part that is paid through the bill-, it must call a new public hearing and obtain the approval of the regulator for the transfer to rates.
In electricity distribution, everything indicates that the criteria of Undersecretary Federico Basualdo who wanted a
"single" increase throughout the year will
prevail
, although in
Economy they
are excited about another recomposition, after the elections.
EB
