BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
The Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative announced Saturday an increase of P2.8 in its residential rates for June, or about 28 percent higher than last month.
The Noceco rate last month was P9.99 per kilowatt hour, while it is P12.8 for June.
Noceco general manager Jonas Discaya, in a statement, said that the higher electricity rates this month was triggered by the increase in the generation charge of P7.6 per kWh, from P2.3 last month.
Discaya said the higher generation charge was due to the increase in the price of the wholesale electricity spot market at P9.12 per kWh from P4.8.
He said the price increase in the Power Supply Agreement with Palm Concepcion Power Corporation to P6.8 per kWh, from P6.7 last month, was another factor in the increase of electricity rates this month.
Recently, there were scheduled outages implemented by Kepco-SPC Power Corporation, one of the power suppliers of Noceco that prompted the coop to avail of power from WESM, instead.
The higher electricity price from WESM resulted in an increase in the average price of the generation rate, Discaya said.
He said other factors that contributed to the overall increase in rates are the systems losses, subsidy rates, and the value-added taxes on transmission of residential customers, among others.
To ease the effect of the electricity rates among consumers, Discaya said they implemented price reduction in their PSA with Kepco, and the transmission rate.
Noceco’s distribution, supply, and metering charges remain unchanged despite the increase in the overall electricity rate for this month.
Member-consumer-owners are advised to conserve energy and to be aware of their energy consumption to avoid paying high electricity bills.
Discaya said the generation and transmission rates are pass-on charges paid to the power suppliers and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, that means the collected amounts on these charges are not retained by Noceco. Noceco is servicing electric consumers from Valladolid to Hinobaan towns in southern Negros Occidental.*
