In a press conference held this Friday, February 9, the general manager of EPM, John Maya Salazargave a piece of peace to the community regarding the management that the public service company is giving for the purposes of the El Niño phenomenon.
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As reported by the senior manager, since scientific evidence predicted the beginning of a season of high temperatures and drought for the beginning of the year 2024, known as the El Niño phenomenon, EPM He prepared to face its consequences. The company continues to provide its water and energy services with quality and continuity, thanks to the fact that it carried out a series of technical maneuvers, investments in infrastructure and new projects, and undertook a pedagogy process with the community.
This was indicated by the general manager of EPM, John Maya Salazar:
“Energy security and water security are the pillars of the strategies and investments that we have been developing for several years, with the purpose of making our systems less and less vulnerable, contributing to the development of the country, the well-being of the community, and respond effectively to events such as the El Niño phenomenon.”
The manager of EPM’s Wholesale Energy Market, Alberto Mejía Reyes, pointed out the initiatives undertaken by the 23 hydraulic power generation plants and one thermal power plant to mitigate the impacts of climate variability and reduce the associated risks:
“As a strategy to respond to the most critical quarter of this phenomenon, since May 2023 EPM maintained the goal of bringing the reservoirs to 80% of useful volume by December of the same year, which today allows them to be in adequate conditions to generate energy in the first quarter of 2024, a period that is considered most critical due to the dry season and its intensification due to El Niño.”
As reported EPMthe entry of units 3 and 4 of the Hidroituango plant contributed to a reduction of close to 40% in the stock market price as of November 2023, meeting around 10% of national demand with its 1,200 megawatts (MW) of capacity, despite the low hydrology due to the effect of El Niño phenomenon.
How are the reservoirs and water sources?
At the press conference held by EPM to announce the impacts and measures that the company is taking due to the El Niño phenomenon, the vice president of Water and Sanitation, Santiago Ochoa Posada, reported that, to date, the three Reservoirs that supply 94% of the EPM aqueduct system (Riogrande II, La Fe and Piedras Blancas) have reduced levels, with a tendency to continue decreasing.
According to what was announced, this situation, which has not yet generated alerts for water shortages, could cause color events in the water in a large part of the Aburrá Valley, since to the extent that the levels of the reservoirs drop, the collection must be at a depth where higher concentrations of manganese are found. Although the five plants that receive water from reservoirs will continue to deliver drinking water with all quality standards, it is possible that the color provided by this element will not be completely removed.
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The vice president of Water and Sanitation, Santiago Ochoa Posada, also reported that the streams and rivers that directly supply 8 of EPM’s 13 purification plants have registered an average reduction of 50% in their flow. This situation could generate a greater probability of interruptions for these territories.
So far, the biggest alerts are associated with the streams that supply the San Cristóbal, Caldas and Barbosa water treatment plants. However, according to the official, several of them already have the support of interconnections and other works built in recent years, which reduces their vulnerability.
Application of the CRA measure for excessive consumption
Despite the warnings to the community about the effects of the El Niño phenomenon, at the end of January 2024 there was an increase in drinking water consumption, which reached 743 liters per second, a figure that is equivalent to the consumption of 440 thousand people. .
With this panorama, EPM insists to the community on responsible use of drinking water, but, at the same time, activates restrictive measures to discourage excessive consumption. This is Resolution CRA 887 of 2019, compiled in Resolution 943 of 2021, of the Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation Regulation Commission (CRA), which is valid throughout the country.
The activation of this measure seeks to reduce excessive consumption of drinking water, and those responsible for applying it are the providers of the public domestic aqueduct service. What does it consist of? Applying an additional charge to consumption (measured in cubic meters) that is above what is established as “excessive consumption”, depending on the thermal floor in which the user is located.
In the case of the municipalities located in the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley, monthly consumption above 26 cubic meters is considered “excessive consumption.” In the municipality of Rionegro, for its part, monthly consumption above 22 cubic meters will have an additional charge.
EPM has already carried out the analysis of the application of this measure in each of the subsystems that supply the Aburrá Valley and Rionegro, contrasting the availability of water with the demand, and defined that initially the additional charge, based on the cubic meters set in the CRA resolution, it should only apply to the aqueduct subsystems of Barbosa, Caldas and San Cristóbal. This applies to residential consumption made since last January 29 and includes prepaid water users in the indicated sectors.
This is how the excessive consumption charge applies
As an example: if a stratum 4 household in Medellín consumes 30 cubic meters of drinking water next month (30 thousand liters of drinking water), when applying the CRA measure this user must pay 26 cubic meters with the associated rate. to its stratum, but the 4 cubic meters that exceed 26 will be considered “excessive consumption” and will have an additional rate, equivalent to applying the consumption charge or variable charge again. In other words, excessive consumption will be charged double. It is important to consider that subsistence consumption in the Aburrá Valley is 13 cubic meters for each home, that is, 13 thousand liters of water.
2024-02-10 10:22:00