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Monday, September 11, 2006
Power rates to go up by 37 centavos
ELECTRIC power consumers in Baguio, Benguet and the whole of Luzon will pay an additional .3797-centavo per kilowatt-hour (kwh) starting next month.
The National Power Corporation (Napocor) served notice to the Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) that it is now implementing the new adjustment as approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
Amelia Theresa Aquino, corporate staff officer of the Napocor accounts management, signed the notice which Beneco received last September 5.
Aquino referred to two ERC orders approving the rate increases which, she said, were to be effective during the July 26 to August 25 billing period.
The ERC, she explained, has approved Napocor’s application “for the Recovery of DAA (Deferred Accounting Adjustment) under the sixth Gram (Generation Rate Adjustment Mechanism) and fifth Incremental Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (Icera) for ERC Case 2006-013 dated July 14, 2006 and ERC Case 2006-012 dated July 12, 2006.”
As per practice, Napocor uses distribution utilities such as Beneco to collect its generation charges and rate increases, with the amounts due included or reflected in the monthly billings that Beneco issues to consumers.
As a result, consumers get the impression that the Napocor increases are those of the cooperative, the Beneco said.
The sixth Gram DAA of P0.4170 per kwh will be implemented for nine months or until April 2007.
The Icera DAA of P0.5719 per kwh is broken down to two components a) debt service and operating expense of P0.361 per kwh to be collected for eight months and; b) amortization of capacity and infrastructure fees of 0.4358 per kwh, which will be collected for 24 months.
The effective increase in NPC rate in the two DAA charges is P0.3797/kwh, the Beneco said. However, the corresponding increase in Beneco’s generation charges will still be computed by Beneco using the Automatic Generation Rate Adjustment (Agra) formula.
The Agra formula is the mechanism approved by the ERC to recover generation charges which would be revenue-neutral for Beneco.
Consumers will bear the impact of the increased Napocor rate next month, to be reflected in the billing covering the September 25 to October 25 period, Beneco added.
Beneco computed the increase in the Napocor bill at P6,680,295.85 for August alone.
Meanwhile, the increase in the Napocor DAA will negatively affect the cash flow of Beneco, considering that the impact of the increase is around P6.7-million, said Brenda Carling, Beneco’s corporate services manager.
“Beneco has to advance the payment of the increase in the rate to NPC and bill its consumers in October,” she said.
Some consumers are batting for service charges against Napocor for using Beneco as its bill collector.
ERC Chairman Rodolfo Albano and Commissioners Rauf Tan and Alejandro Barin signed the order for the fifth Icera on July 12 and with Commissioner Maria Theresa Castañeda in the order for the 6th Gram DAA on July 14.
The last approved rate adjustment of Napocor was last December.
ERC also regulates the rate adjustments of transmission utilities, together with distributors, be they non-stock, stock cooperatives or stock corporations. (Ed Brillantes)
(September 11, 2006 issue)
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