Power rate up 37 cents in September

Sunstar Bacolod
Friday, September 19, 2014

FOR the second consecutive month, the residential power rate of Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) has increased this time by 37 centavos per kilowatt hour (kWh).

In its advisory Thursday, the Ceneco management said the rate for September 2014 billing is P9.7477 per kWh from last month’s P9.3766 per kWh.

“The upward adjustment in Ceneco’s effective rate can be mainly attributed to the adjustment in the generation system charge which shows an increase of P0.2189 per kWh,” it said.

This is due to Ceneco’s increased sourcing from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), from 3.31 percent to 10.36 percent of Ceneco’s total energy requirement.

The Ceneco management said that generation charges and transmission charges are pass-through charges being billed to Ceneco by its power suppliers and transmission service provider, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

The distribution charges, which are charges pertaining to Ceneco, remain constant, it further said.

In August, Ceneco also announced the increase of 12 centavos in its residential power rate. From July’s rate of P9.25 per kilowatt hour, last month’s rate went up to P9.37 per kWh.

The previous month’s rate increase was mainly due to the generation system charge which increased by P.0416 per kWh due to a 20-day scheduled preventive maintenance of the Kepco-Salcon Power Corporation which led to exposure in the WESM.

In July and June, residential power rates decreased.

Residential rate for July 2014 billing was P9.2555 per kWh, down by P0.7304 per kWh from the June 2014 rate of P9.9859 per kWh.

In June, residential power rate also dropped by almost P0.16 centavos after successive rate increases in the months of April and May. For June 2014 billing, the residential rate is P9.9859 per kilowatt hour (kWh), a reduction of P0.1583 per kWh from last month’s P10.1442 per kWh. (NLG with reports from Sunnex) source