P1.31 hike only temporary

LAWYER Arnel Lapore, president of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco), has confirmed the P1.31 per kilowatt hour increase in electricity rates for the billing month of December.

Lapore said the increase was only temporary and the consumers can expect power rates to return to its original level in January.

Electric bills for the billing month of January will be received in February yet.

Lapore said the power rate hike in December was reflected in the Generation and Transmission charges due to the maintenance works conducted by its power source, Kepco Salcon, in one of its plants in Naga, Cebu.

He said the scheduled maintenance work is stated in the contract between the distribution utilities like Ceneco and Kepco Salcon.

Because of the maintenance works which lasted for 15 days, Lapore said that Ceneco and other distribution utilities like VRESCO and Noceco had no choice but get the needed power supply from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) which has a volatile price.

"We are saddened to inform the consumers that we affected the generation charges and transmission but it was only temporary," Lapore said.

He said that if Ceneco did not buy power from the WESM, massive brownouts would have been experienced in December.

Ceneco gets 64 megawatts of power supply from Kepco Salcon.