The Administración Nacional de Electricidad (ANDE) formally rejected Atome PLC's request to change the tariff and commercial conditions of its power supply contract. In a notice sent on June 26, 2026 (No. P. 2380/2026) to Atome's president in Paraguay, James Spalding, and signed by ANDE's chief, Félix Eladio Sosa, the state-owned utility concluded that "it is not feasible to grant the request," following a technical and financial analysis of the proposal.
The request had been submitted in November 2025 and involved changes to the electricity tariff as well as the technical, economic, and commercial conditions of the existing contract. ANDE informed the company that it may continue as a customer provided it pays the technical tariff, currently set at US$44.3 per MWh, with projections of reaching US$50 per MWh in the coming years.
Atome, a British-based company, sought a dollar-denominated fixed tariff of around US$30 per MWh for a period of approximately 10 years to secure its return on investment. The state-owned utility argued that this is not viable because generation costs will fluctuate over the period. Energy accounts for 80% of the company's operating costs, and it plans to invest US$665 million and create around 4,000 jobs.
The company expressed dissatisfaction with the public disclosure of the notice and stated that ANDE's stance "contains no new information," since the utility had already addressed the matter in recent weeks. Atome attributes the impasse to the "unexpected repeal" of the Energía X decrees, which established a special tariff regime for convergent industries such as green hydrogen, artificial intelligence, and crypto mining.
Despite the rejection, the company stated that "negotiations with ANDE will continue" and classified the project as being of "national strategic importance." James Spalding recently stated that the project's financiers remain open to dialogue to avoid the loss of what he called a "historic and emblematic private investment." The project is backed by shareholders such as Hy24, IFC (along with the GCF), DEG, IFDK, and the local bank Sudameris, as well as support from multilateral institutions such as IDB Invest, FMO, and the European Investment Bank.