Noceco power rate up anew

ELECTRIC consumers in the southern portion of the province may incur higher bills this month as Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative (Noceco) announced another round of increase in its residential power rate.

From P11.1490 per kilowatt hour (kwh) in April, the cooperative’s rate moved up to P12.2135 per kwh this month or an adjustment of P1.0645 per kwh.

The power distribution utility caters to electric consumers from Pulupandan to Hinoba-an.

Jonas Discaya, general manager of Noceco, said the higher rate is attributed to the increase in generation charge.

Discaya said the cost of energy from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) has gone up by P2.9628 per kwh.

From P5.1763 per kwh in the previous month, the current charge is P8.1391 per kwh.

“The WESM price increased due to high demand of customers’ energy consumption in general due to the summer season,” Discaya said, adding that the spot market addresses the deficiency of the utility’s power requirement.

As per law of supply and demand, the recent deficiency in supply resulted in higher spot market prices, he added.

Noceco, however, reported that the increase in the overall electricity rate was cushioned by the decreases 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 dropped by P0.2000 per kwh while subsidy and value added tax (VAT) rates registered a total reduction 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, which moved from P5.4887 per kwh to P5.9317 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, Discaya added.*