Power rates up in Baguio, Benguet

By Dexter A. See January 25, 2021
https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/01/25/news/regions/power-rates-up-in-baguio-benguet/832220/

BAGUIO CITY: Consumers of the Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) in Baguio City and Benguet will see a jump in their January power bills, caused by an increase in generation and transmission charges, two of the pass-through charges from independent power producers (IPPs) and the transmission company, respectively.

From the P7.6311 per kilowatt hour (kWh) charged to residential consumers last December, Beneco will be billing them P7.8367 per kWh for this month because of the adjustments made by the IPPs and the transmission firm.

Low-voltage commercial consumers will be charged P7.1005 per kWh for January 2021, compared to the P6.8845 per kWh collected from them by the electric cooperative in December 2020.

The generation charge that will be reflected in the January power bills of consumers is P3.9599 per kWh, compared to the P3.8788 per kWh last December, while the transmission charge for the current bills will be P0.7633 per kWh, compared to the P0.7319 per kWh last December.

Beneco remits the collected generation charge to commissioned independent power producers while the transmission charge is remitted to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

For January, industrial consumers will be charged P7.0691 per kWh, compared to the P6.8532 per kWh that these consumers were billed by the electric cooperative last month.

Consumption of public buildings will be billed P7.0727 per kWh, compared to the P6.8568 per kWh charged in December 2020.

Consumption of streetlights will be billed P7.1005 per kWh, compared to the P6.8845 per kWh last month.

High-voltage commercial consumers will be charged P5.6154 per kWh in January 2021, compared to the P5.4450 per kWh in December 2020.

For high-voltage public buildings, their consumption will be billed P5.5876 per kWh, compared to the previous billing of P5.4173 per kWh.

The pass-through charges such as the generation and transmission charges are beyond the control of rural electric cooperatives, as such charges are dictated by outside factors beyond its control.

Pass-on charges such as the distribution, supply and metering or DSM charge, however, are regulated by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

Despite the slight increase in the power rates for January 2021, Beneco supposedly remains one of the power distribution utilities that has the cheapest power rates, which are even much lower compared to charges of private distribution companies.

Power industry experts have noted that the energy sector was one of the heavily impacted businesses last year because of the implementation of various levels of community quarantines, which caused a drastic reduction in the consumption of commercial and industrial consumers.

But experts have described the situation as gradually improving with resumption of economic activities in some parts of the country over the past few months.