ELECTRIC consumers in the southern portion of Negros Occidental province are expected to incur higher bills this month as the Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative (Noceco) announced another round of increase in its residential rate.
The new rate is P12.2135 per kilowatt hour (kWh), an adjustment of P1.0645 per kWh from P11.1490 per kWh in April.
The power distribution utility serves electric consumers from Pulupandan to Hinoba-an.
Jonas Discaya, general manager of Noceco, attributed the higher rate to the increase in generation charge.
Discaya said the average cost of energy from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) has gone up by P2.9628 per kWh to P8.1391 per kWh from P5.1763 per kWh in the previous month.
“The WESM price increased due to high demand of customers’ energy consumption in general due to the summer season,” Discaya said.
Noceco, however, reported that the increase in the overall electricity rate was cushioned by the decrease in other charges.
For its Power Supply Agreement (PSA), it noted a decrease of P0.5192 per kWh and P0.1218 per kWh from power suppliers Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC) and Kepco Salcon Power Corp. (KSPC), respectively.
Transmission charge also went down by P0.2000 per kWh while subsidy and value added tax (VAT) decreased by a total of P0.0526 per kWh.
It can be recalled that April’s power rate was also higher by P0.7120 per kWh compared to P10.4370 per kWh in February.
The main driver of the higher electricity rate was the P0.4430 per kWh increase in the generation charge to P5.9317 per kWh from P5.4887 per kWh.
Discaya again urged member-consumers to conserve energy and monitor their energy consumption to avoid paying high electricity bills.
He stressed that generation and transmission rates are pass-on charges paid to power suppliers and transmission utility National Grid Corporation of the
Philippines (NGCP). Thus, the collected amount on these charges are not retained by Noceco, he added.