Costa Rica News – Purchasing power in Costa Rica has become the center of debate between the Costa Rican Electricity Institute and the Regulatory Authority of Public Services. Both ICE and Aresep disagree on who really controls the regional market.
The National Energy Control Center (Cence) is responsible for most of the decision making, and ICE claims that Cence is a “fully decentralized body,” as it has to operate independently of ICE. That doesn’t change the fact that ICE manages Cence.
Aresep’s mayor, Juan Manuel Quesada, argues that their decisions might be swayed to help ICE. The whole issue was sparked by last year’s confusion over the administrative transfer surrounding Cence.
Aresep now wants the new chairman, Carlos Obregon, to explain the actions he plans to take to make sure the decisions made by Cence will be unbiased. A comprehensive answer was said to have been given by Luis Pacheco, instead of by Obregon himself.
There is something ICE and Aresep agree on, which is to import energy instead of generating it in the country, in order to lower costs. The energy they need to purchase is on the rise.
ICE went from 4 gigawatt hours to 65 from June to April.
