Dominican Republic among the countries with the highest energy prices in the region

The Dominican Republic is among the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the highest prices for energy products and services, including liquefied gas, natural gas and electricity, among others.

Along with the country are Barbados, Chile, Panama and Uruguay, according to the study Development of energy poverty indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean, published this month by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

The report also indicates that here, in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Panama and Uruguay, the lowest income quintiles spend between 19% and 15% of their income on energy.

The report points out that excessive spending to meet energy needs conditions household welfare.

Dominican Republic also stands out among the countries with the highest consumption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), with the highest prices of kerosene and where households must spend more to acquire efficient refrigeration technologies.

The country also stands out for the high prices of systems used for cooking food, both technologies that use electricity and those that use gas.

“Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic show similar trends in food cooking, where prices are more than double the average weighted prices of other countries, except Honduras,” the report states.

The document details that in the case of gas cooktops (cooking appliances) prices range between US$500 and US$1,000, and electric cooktops exceed US$1,000 in the country.

The study concludes that in terms of equity in energy access, the region has significant price barriers and high efficiency technologies and marked inequality in terms of household energy expenditures.

“In a region marked by inequality, access to energy reproduces the socioeconomic conditions of the countries in the region, which generates a worrisome outlook for the prospects of a just energy transition,” warn the authors of the report.

They add that although the complementarity of energy efficiency measures could be positioned as a solution both to reduce the economic pressure on households and to reduce their energy consumption based on fossil fuels, the high price of the most efficient devices hinders autonomous technological change in households.

Finally, they point out that in terms of energy quality, the results indicate that the stability of electricity supply in the countries of the region is far from international quality standards. In this regard, they point out that in some countries this gap is related to the number of interruptions, while in others with fewer interruptions, the delay in restoring service is of concern.

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