Mérida, Yucatán — The president of the federal Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) has agreed to come to Yucatan to review the state’s high electricity rates.
The local branch of the Chamber of Commerce will work with the CRE to examine CFE bills sent to both residential and business customers, looking to lower the price in the state and match it with the rest of the country.
A recent change in the formula for calculating power bills has shot costs upwards for many customers. Some bills increased 400 percent.
The southeast of the country tends to pay higher rates than other parts of Mexico, but Chamber leader José Manuel López Campos is demanding parity with the rest of the country.
López Campos explained that among the points that will be reviewed in these working sessions with the CRE is the formula that takes into account the consecutive months when temperatures here tend to go well above 35C/95F, increasing demand on electricity.
Yucatán’s heat is balanced by periods of rain and cold fronts, which should be a mitigating factor that is worked into the formula.
For this reason, he invited the president of the federal agency, Guillermo García Alcocer, to come to Yucatán to analyze the situation in person and consider lowering the price of electricity in the southeast of the country.
“We invite the president of the CRE to Yucatán to participate in some workshops and discuss some issues that were not considered in the current rates, and we want to propose a revision in the calculation mechanism for the application of subsidies or preferential rates,” he said.
The Business Coordinating Council’s president, Carlos Campos Achach, said that higher rates are bad for the economy, triggering inflation.
The CFE pulled back a similar increase in Baja California after business owners negotiated with the government, shrinking a 400 percent rate hike to 4.7 percent.
With information from Punto Medio
