CEBU Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) officials attended on Monday, April 26, 2021, a virtual conference with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on its request to review the power supply agreement (PSA) between Visayan Electric Co. Inc. and Cebu Private Power Corp. (CPPC) in 2013.
CCCI president Felix Taguiam said there will be more hearings to come.
“We just want them to bring down the cost of power,” he said.
In a previous report, CCCI said Cebu’s electricity has always been one of the most expensive in the country.
The chamber cited an ERC statement on Dec. 28, 2020, which indicated the November 2020 generation charge from P3.9513 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to P5.0985/kWh. The high end of this range belonged to Visayan Electric, CCCI said.
CCCI earlier appealed to the commission to conduct a review on Visayan Electric’s supply agreement “after finding substantive grounds on alleged anti-competitive behavior in the agreement and that its implementation is contrary to the requirement in the Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) that distribution utilities should supply electricity in the least cost.”
The appeal further argued that the increase in generation rates for 2020 is largely attributable to the amount of capacity fee being paid by Visayan Electric to CCPC, which still includes capital recovery fee (CRF). CRF is the cost for the recovery of capital or investment incurred in putting up the power plant.
The CPPC power plant was constructed by East Asia Diesel Power Corp. for Visayan Electric under a build-operate-transfer scheme for a 15-year cooperation period which ended in November 2013.
However, a new supply contract for another 10 years was entered into and approved by ERC.
To date, CPPC capacity fees are passed on to Visayan Electric consumers amounting to roughly P66 million a month, on top of the generation cost.
CPPC’s per kWh rate ranged from P26 to P1,470.92 per kwh in 2020, CCCI said in a press release. (JOB)