BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – A cutback of 3 pesos and 55 cents per kilowatt hour will be implemented by MORE Power to all residential consumers in Iloilo City for the billing month of July, a press release from MORE Electric and Power Corporation said.
This developed over at the Panay island city as local power cooperative Central Negros Electric Cooperative announced here that charges will rise by 95 centavos per kilowatthour in July 2021.
Lawyer and acting general manager Danilo Pondevilla said residential rate charges in CENECO-serviced areas will reach P10.4935 per kilowatthour, up by 95 cents.
He said the hike is because of increases in transmission, generation, and systems loss charges, and other “pass through” charges.
Back to Iloilo, the MORE news release said during last month’s billing, the power rate has reached P10 per kilowatt hour which means that this month, the billing would be significantly lower with 6 pesos and 45 cents per kilowatt hour.
We quote the remaining part of the release in full:
Meanwhile, commercial, intermediate and government consumers posted a 30 percent decrease in their per kilowatt hour rate.
This is so far the biggest reduction in power rate prices in the city of Iloilo.
According to MORE Electric and Power Corporation President Roel Castro, what aided the historic reduction in the per kilowatt hour rate was the recent connection of all its substations directly to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) wherein it can purchase power at a cheaper rate.
Through this, MORE Power was able to directly purchase 100 percent of its needed power supply a lot cheaper from the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation, which operates the Geothermal Plant in Leyte that is a renewable energy.
Compared to other distribution utilities and electric cooperatives, MORE Power’s rate for the billing month of July is lower by almost half.
With this, MORE Power will be considered as the distribution utility with the cheapest rate for the month of July.
MORE Power believes that the continued reduction in the billing rate will continue for the next six months and could even be much lesser with the Competitive Selection Process that the company is currently undertaking with its suppliers.
A total of more than P5 has been already reduced to the power rate since MORE Power took over the utility distribution of the city of Iloilo last year.
