DOMLEC has been instructed by the Independent Regulatory Commission (IRC) to adopt and implement the Guaranteed and Overall Quality of Service Standards published in the Commission’s Decision paper on October 10, 2009. An Administrative Order (Document reference: 2009/002/O) was issued to DOMLEC in December 2009 in line with the powers given to the Commission by Section 41 of the 2006 Electricity Supply Act.
The Decision was made following months of stakeholder consultation on the proposed regime and various amendments to the original proposal. DOMLEC will report to the IRC on the Guaranteed Standards on a quarterly basis beginning March 2010.
The Quality of Service Standards (QSS) regime will help to ensure that customer satisfaction is a priority and that the principles of competition are maintained, even in our current situation where only DOMLEC has been granted a licence to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in Dominica.
Quality Service Standards will:
- Bring DOMLEC’s operating efficiencies under scrutiny,
- Mitigate against the common occurrence of service quality reduction in times of increasing costs or pressure to reduce costs
- Compensate consumers for any breach of the guarantees
- Encourage better service.
The standards being implemented fall into two categories:
- Guaranteed standards – A set of service standards which the utility will guarantee as a basic level of service to individual customers. If the utility breaches them, it will directly compensate the affected customers at EC$12.00 per breach.
- Overall standards – A set of service standards which affect the electricity system generally and therefore large groups of customers. If the electricity company breaches them it will affect the level of service and/or the quality of the electricity supplied to customers. No direct compensation to customers – the Commission will consider the utility’s performance in these areas when setting tariffs.
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