And while. BEL is asking customers to conserve - the company is also seeking approval for its 2024 Full Tariff Review Proceeding proposal.
Last night, the Public Utilities Commission held a public hearing for the proposal. Chairman of PUC, Dean Molina, began by explaining the changes in rates that will be implemented.
Dean Molina, Chairman, PUC
"In summary, the commission approved the following new rates for one year and it is approved in what we refer to as a regulatory sandbox because it is for a single year and it is an opportunity for us to test these new rates and the justification for why we put it in a regulatory sandbox is clearly stated within the decision and I invite all of you to read it. What we approved yesterday was a rate for those who have solar power installed on their premises but still choose to remain tied to the national grid. We also approved a feeding tariff of which BEL is authorized to purchase excess power from those who are licensed by the public utilities commission to sell that excess power to BEL and I stress that point that you have to be licensed so there is a period by which all those who currently have installed solar needs to regularize and license with the public utilities commission. We also approved a rate that BEL is authorized to sell to its subsidiary or anyone else who may be interested in setting up electric vehicle stations across the country. We approved a rate for the connection of Spanish Lookout to the national grid and we also introduced a new classification which the commission refers to as a demand charge rate. This rate had been submitted by BEL for those in the tourism sector but it is the opinion of the commission that those rates should not be discriminatory in nature and as such, the new demand rate has been approved to give anyone the option to shift their existing classification if it makes economic sense to them. In that way, not only those in the tourism sector will enjoy the benefits of the new rate but those perhaps in the agricultural, sector, in the aquaculture sector that have been asking for assistance with rate reduction and even residential customers may decide for themselves whether a demand charge would be the best rate for them."
And BEL's CEO explained the new developments that the company is hoping to make moving forward. However, John Mencias pointed out that BEL's rates are the best regionally, and now they must perform a balancing act of maintaining the rates while still making new investments.
John Mencias, CEO, BEL
"Contrary to popular opinion, BEL is not making a lot of money. Our average return on equity over the ten year period, is 5.6% and that is because we had a windfall during the COVID years, well during COVID and just after, when we had returns of over 12%. As you all know, as a result of COVID, demand all over the world dropped and as a result we were the beneficiary of very low prices from Mexico. And as a result of that we could achieve that huge, you see a big jump, spike, on the trajectory on the return of equity. If it were not for that, we would probably be hovering closer to 5%."
"What we are trying to do is to maintain prices, the price of electricity to customers at the same levels on average while at the same time making the huge amounts of unprecedented investments that we have to make to increase the reliability of the system to a developed world standard and that is the challenge we have at BEL. How can we maintain the electricity prices where they are at least having established to you that they beat almost every jurisdiction in the region but importantly how we can improve the reliability of the system going forward."
Since the public hearing, the PUC has issued an interim order requesting more information from BEL.
