Edesur distributes and sells electricity in the southern area of Buenos Aires. This includes two-thirds of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA) and twelve districts of the Buenos Aires Province, covering a 3,309 km2 area, for a period of 95 years starting from August 31, 1992.
This period includes an initial 15-year term and eight additional periods of 10 years each. On February 5, 2007, the National Electricity Regulatory Entity (ENRE) resolved to extend the initial period for five extra years, as of the end of the Integral Tariff Review (RTI) process.
On January 27, 2016, the MINEM No. 7/2016 Resolution was issued which instructed ENRE, among other things, to: adjust the VAD in the company´s tariff charts, on behalf of the RTI (Integral Fees Renegotiation) and the framework of the Transitory Tariff Regime established in the Agreement Act and to carry our every action required to implement the RTI, which should have come into force before December 31, 2016. The process and schedule for the RTI was established through Resolution ENRE 55 as of April 5, 2016.
As part of the RTI process, on October 28, 2016 a call for a Public Consultation was launched to inform of the project and hear the opinions related to the tariff proposals that the distribution companies Edesur and Edenor presented to ENRE according to Resolution ENRE No. 55/2016.
On December 30, 2016, ENRE issued Resolution No. 626, approving the document denominated Final Public Consultation Resolution in order to inform and answer the opinions made in relation to the Tariffs Proposal presented previously by the companies with regards to the definition of tariffs to be ap- plied, and move for the consideration of the Undersecretary of Tariffs Policy Coordination of the Ministry of Energy and Mining of the Nation, those proposed issues subjects planned that are not within the sphere of responsibility of said entity.
On February 1, 2017 the Integral Tariff Review came into force, thus ending the renegotiation process of the concession contract, reestablishing the full validity of the Concession Con- tract, the Tariff and the Service Quality Regime, which were renegotiated pursuant to the principles established by Law 24.065.
The validity of the RTI tariff period, established between February 1, 2017 and January 31, 2022, will require an improvement to the quality of service regime as the expectations of investment development and operational improvements that EDESUR proposed in the context of RTI will increase. There- fore, the quality guidelines will be more demanding, and the cost of energy not delivered will increase throughout the period, reaching the values established recently in the last semester of the period.
At the same time, SAIDI (one of the indices related to service quality) improved in 2019 in relation to 2018, with a reduction of 4.7 hours, reaching 20.23 hours according to Enel criteria.
The concession contract establishes that Edesur must supply energy as required by the owners or inhabitants of the properties located within its concession area, comply with certain quality standards related to the electricity supplied, comply with operational requirements concerning the maintenance of distribution assets and to bill clients on the basis of effective measurements.
In December 2017, the Ministry of Energy and Mining (MI- NEM) presented its proposal and criteria for the treatment of regulatory liabilities. The first measure was, via a Note issued on December 30, 2017, that the Ministry informed CAMMESA that it took possession of the debt registered by EDESUR with said Company for the purchase of energy, for a period of 90 days pending the signing of the aforementioned agreement. EDESUR continued to work on the agreement in 2018, and the final Resolution regarding these matters was subject to the change of jurisdiction.
On December 4, 2018 Law 27.469 approved the Fiscal Consensus signed on September 13, 2018 between the Nation and most of the Provinces. This agreement considers that “electricity distribution companies Empresa Distribuidora Norte SA (Edenor) and Empresa Distribuidora Sur SA (Edesur) should be part of the jurisdiction of the Province of Buenos Aires and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), in line with other electricity distribution companies in the other jurisdictions”.
Similarly, the General Budget for Expenses and Resources of National Administration Law 27.467 for 2019, published also on December 4, 2018, established in article 124, to instruct the National Executive Authority to “foster those actions needed for the transfer of jurisdiction of electricity distribution companies Empresa Distribuidora Norte S.A. (Edenor) and Empresa Distribuidora Sur S.A. (Edesur) from the Province of Buenos Aires to CABA” from January 1, 2019, and “once this becomes effective, the National Entity for Electricity Regulation (ENRE in its Spanish acronym) created through article 54 of Law 24.065 will keep its functions and faculties in all matters not related to the public service of electricity distribution”.
On 1 February 2019, ENRE Resolutions No. 24/2019 and 26/2019 were published in the Official Journal. The first approved the values in the tariff table effective for the billing for meter readings after zero hours on February 1, 2019, ac- cording to the increases in the seasonal price of energy and power. The second Resolution defined the new Distribution Added Value (VAD) values, to be applied as of March 1, 2019, including deferrals and due compensations. The increases as- signed to March 2019 followed the VAD standardization pro- cess defined by the RTI published in February 2017.
As part of the transfer of the public electricity distribution service, on May 9, 2019, the National State, CABA and the Province signed an Agreement implementing the transfer, notifying Edesur of the agreement which the last signed. The Agreement states that the Province and CABA jointly hold the status of the granting authority of the public service provided by the Company, and that the Company will continue to be governed by its concession contract and by the national legal and regulatory regulations as may apply.
On 2 May 2019, the new tariff table containing the seasonal price update for the May-July 2019 period was published, established via Resolution No.14 issued on April 29, 2019 by the Secretariat of Renewable Resources and Electricity Market.
On 10 May 2019, Edesur signed an Agreement on the Regularization of Obligations with the Secretariat of Energy, on be- half of the National State, according to which any outstanding reciprocal claims arising from the 2006 - 2017 transition period were terminated. This was the solution to the cross claims for the period in question.
On 19 September 2019 Edesur signed an Agreement on Tariff with the National State where the latter instructs ENRE to, during the six-month period starting on August 1, 2019, maintain in force the tariff tables prior to the beginning of that period for all tariff categories, which means that EDESUR will continue to receive the compensation included therein due from prior recoveries and disputes (ENRE resolution No. 26/19). The difference in the VAD and the difference in seasonal pric- es, the increase of which was ratified by the Resolution of the Ministry of Renewable Resources and the Electricity Market No. 26 issued on September 3, 2019, for the period from the August 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019, will be recovered in 7 monthly installments as of January 1, 2020.
Edesur also undertakes to maintain service quality and agrees to postpone the payments of any sanctions until March 1, 2020 at their original value plus the adjustments corresponding to the time of payment, in 6 monthly instalments.
The Regulatory Decree No. 1289 issued on October 1, 2019 by the Province of Buenos Aires and the previous sanctions and the publication of Law No. 6180, Decree No. 263 and the Supplementary Resolution No. 161 of June 30, 2019 by the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ratified, on part of both Provinces, what was established in the so-called “Fiscal Consensus 2018” and Article 124 of Law No. 27.469. The above-mentioned agreements finalize the transfer of the service by this Company from the National State to the jurisdictions of the Province of Buenos Aires and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
On December 10, 2019, Dr. Alberto Fernández took over as the new President of the Republic of Argentina and Dr. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as Vice-President.
On Friday, December 20, 2019, the National Congress approved Law No. 27.541 denominated the Law on SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AND PRODUCTIVE REACTIVATION WITHIN THE PUBLIC EMERGENCY FRAMEWORK declaring a state of public emergency in economic, financial, fiscal, administrative, planning, tariff, energy, health and social matters until December 31, 2020. The law authorizes the National Executive Branch in article 5 to maintain the electricity and gas rates of the federal jurisdiction and to initiate a renegotiation process of the still valid Comprehensive Tariff Review in an extraordinary capacity and for a maximum period of 180 days tending to a reduction of the current household, commercial and industrial tariffs for 2020. And authorizes ENRE to intervene (Article 6) as it will maintain its scope of competence for the duration of the emergency by suspending the validity of the second paragraph of Article 124 of Law No. 27.467 (Article 7).
On Friday, December 27, 2019, ENRE, pursuant to Article 7 of Law No. 27541, instructed Edesur not to modify the current Tariff Table even though it no longer belongs to federal juris- diction.
In 2019, Edesur delivered electric power to 2,490,449 clients. Of the total, 88.1% are residential clients, 11.0% commercial, 0.8% industrial and 0.04% others. Energy sales totalled 16,798 GWh, including distribution services (toll) to large users, with a 5.4% decrease as compared to the previous year. Overall, 48.9% energy was distributed to the residential sector, 43% to the commercial segment and 8.1% to the industrial sector.
In 2019, the annual mobile loss rate - technical and non-technical - reached 15.50%, a worse result if compared to the 14.2% recorded in 2018. This result is obtained in a scenario of a shrinking demand compared to the previous year (-3.17% 2019 vs 2018) and an increase in aggressiveness, related to energy thefts, confirming the trend of the previous year. This is also related to the increase in the rate.