If the holder of Energy, Flavia Royon and the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa comply with the commitment made to the IMF authorities to completely eliminate the subsidies in force in the electric sectorthe highest-income residential users in the metropolitan region -which since the middle of last year have been labeled N1- will begin to pay between five and six times as of June what they paid last winter for the same level of consumption .
For their part, the middle-class home customers that make up the N3 group and that do not exceed the subsidized consumption limits will have to face, in the same period, an increase that would oscillate between 200% and 300% with respect to the invoices they had received in June of last year.
And in the case of low-income users of line N2 of Edenor and Edesurthe winter versus winter increases that will be reflected in the final bills would be between 75% and 110%.
The raises in play between last winter season and the one to come are based on the accumulation of increases that have been implemented since last September and the double tariff adjustment that the Government plans to carry out in May and June.
Unlike the gas service where they are already facing the full rate, in the case of electricity service N1 residential users continue to receive a subsidy on the electricity bill of 35%. In the cases of households classified as N2 and N3, the percentage level of subsidies ranges from 60% to 78%.
Unless there is a last-minute change, from the first minute of the next holiday due to Labor Day, the Total removal of subsidies for all N1 users and for those N3 that consume more than 400 kWh per month in the metropolitan region and 550 kWh in the provinces of the NEA.
The highest-income residential users of the AMBA will start paying between five and six times more as of June
Subsidies and electricity: how much will the bills increase
Elimination of subsidies and payment of the full rate will imply an increase of 135% average in the value of energy with a final impact on bills that will oscillate between 60% and 90% according to the different consumption scales of N1 and N3 households.
This adjustment will be followed in June by the second increase in fixed charges for the Edenor and Edesur savings banks.
At the beginning of March and with the power cuts in full swing, the ENRE, led by the massista Walter Martello, granted the metropolitan distributors a recomposition of your specific income of 108% that is already applied from April 1 and another of 74% that will come into force at the beginning of June.
With these increases—which fall on the three levels (N1, N2 and N3) in which residential users were grouped after the tariff segmentation and subsidy reduction scheme that has been applied since last September–, the owners of Edenor and Edesur they will end up receiving an accumulated improvement in their income of 261% in the first half of the year.
According to the calculations of the consultancy Economía y Energía, these increases granted to electricity distributors in the Federal Capital and Greater Buenos Aires they will have a final impact on invoices that would range between 89% and 132%.
National and metropolitan segmentation
The official data from the Registry of Access to Energy Subsidies (RASE) indicate that of the almost 16 million residential clients that are connected to the electrical networks throughout the country, around 35% -5,385,520 million households- they have been registered in the N1 segment with the highest income.
There is still time to apply for the electricity subsidy
Meanwhile, in the column of low-income households No. 2, 7,713,304 million households appear, representing almost 49% of the total, and in block N3 of the middle sectors, another 2,817,497 million households were grouped, equivalent to almost 17% of the residential universe.
On the other hand, the numbers of the distributors of the metropolitan region of AMBA show the following panorama. In the case of Edenor (controlled by the trio of local businessmen made up of Daniel Vila, José Luis Manzano and Mauricio Filiberti), the block of higher-income users who will lose subsidies reaches almost 1.1 million households and represents 33, 2% of the total residential clientele. Meanwhile, N2 users total 1.5 million households and are equivalent to 46%. And N3 households represent 19% and add up to just over 640,000 users.
On the Edesur side (in the hands of the Italian group ENELwith a sale sign since last year), the residential users who will have the greatest increases due to the total pruning of the subsidies reach almost 840,000 households, 35% of the total. For their part, low-income N2s cover 1.1 million households (43%), while N3s reach 550,000 households (22%).
Since the end of March, the Government has been deploying an intense and massive campaign so that a greater number of users who were registered as N1 request the maintenance of subsidies and their re-registration in segments 2 or 3.
According to the analysis of the Energy officials, there would be around 1.5 million households listed as N1 that are mostly settled in the metropolitan region of the AMBA that would be in Conditions of maintaining subsidies and remain temporarily outside the increases expected from May.
This is a large number of low-income households that, due to ignorance or lack of computer connection or because they did not lose access to the monthly purchase of official dollars, have not yet signed up for the subsidy regime and are automatically located in the highest segment.
