by Rod Hughes

The Costa Rican power monopoly, ICE, has petitioned the utility watchdog agency, ARESEP, strong rate hikes for March 2008. ICE wants to charge half a million residences 20% more and asks of electrical companies a 32% increase.

At one time, ARESEP had the reputation of being a compliant body that never met a rate hike it didn’t like, but apparently those days are over. Last year, ARESEP flatly rejected electrical rate hikes after a series of power outages that underscored deficiencies in ICE’s infrastructure.

The increase to power distributors like National Power and Light (Fuerza y Luz in Spanish), JASEC and COOPELESCAoopelesca will mean that they will be forced to raise their rates to customers. ICE itself directly serves Limon, Puntarenas, rural areas of San Jose province, Cartago and parts of Sarapiqui as well as the Nicoya Peninsula, northern Guanacaste province and Nicaragua border communities.

As calculated by the newspaper La Nacion, a family consuming 200kws would pay 1,800 colones more in the dry season (January to May) when diesel generators are employed. Thus, their monthly bills would jump from 9,200 to 11,000 colones.