Power rates are expected to rise in May due to the extreme heat and the recent power shortages that has seen the national grid operator place all regions in the country under either red or yellow alert as multiple power plants went offline or reduced their capacities.
With that in mind, power distributors and electric cooperatives were urged to explore ways to cushion the blow of bill shocks on consumers. Monalisa Dimalanta, chair of the Energy Regulatory Commission, said power distributors may initiate talks with their respective suppliers to stagger payments of electricity bills even without seeking its approval.
“We are appealing to our [power distributors] to do it on their own because if they don’t, the regulator will be constrained to step in. And if we have to do it, we will do it. But we do not want to take the lead,” she said.
Dimalanta said some distributors take the initiative to levy electricity bills in tranches in times like this, while certain suppliers are “very mindful of their civic duty” and allow the deferred payment mechanism in collecting generation charges.
Power generators are also told to “be receptive to these requests given the situation,” she added.
The ERC made the pronouncement after it suspended the operations of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market in Luzon and Visayas during times of red alert to temper increases in billings.
It will be interesting to see how Filipinos, who are no longer shocked with regular power interruptions caused by infrastructure that cannot handle the heat and the load, will be able to handle the shock of their power bills that are expected to be more expensive despite the unreliability of the electricity that has been provided to us over the past few weeks, which have been characterized by red and yellow alerts.
We will see if the power distributors and electric cooperatives who love to proclaim that their purpose is to serve, rather than to make a handsome profit of of our dependence to their electricity, regardless of the unreliability of the service they are supposed to provide, will make the effort to temper the power of the shock of our electricity bills.*
