BY CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
The Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod Committee on Energy and Public Utilities will hold a virtual committee hearing at 10 a.m. today concerning the resolution authored by Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr., urging Central Negros Electric Cooperative to refund its consumers of pass on charges.
Gamboa is urging CENECO anew, in a proposed resolution, to settle and refund passed-on charges to its member-owner-consumers the “differential amount caused by the recent extension of the KEPCO-SALCON Power Supply Contract (KSPC-PSA) and the congestion and other charges attributable to the damaged submarine cable of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
Gamboa reacted to a CENECO press release that there will be a decrease of P2.0814 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for this month’s billing due to the reduction in generation, transmission, system loss charges and other pass-on charges. Adding, the rate for October is P10.1788/kWh, compared to last month’s P12.2602/kWh.
He stressed that this pales in comparison to the unimplemented September 20, letter of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) directing the Philippine Electricity Spot Market Corporation (PEMC), which manages the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, to stop collecting congestion charges and other fees which were collected for the billing months of June to August due to the damaged submarine cable of the NGCP.
The ERC acted favorably on the complaints of electric cooperatives and consumers in Negros and Panay “to refund the consumers on the charges mentioned above due to the damaged Cebu-Negros submarine cable of the NGCP.”
CENECO president Jojit Yap herself was quoted in a press statement that WESM price decreased from P14.1843 to P4.2601 recently due to the “stabilization of power source” but this is not yet reflected in today’s CENECO bills.
Meanwhile, the proposed resolution, reiterated his position urging CENECO to refund the differential hefty amount caused by the recent extension of the KSPC-PSA at a reduced capacity of twenty (20) megawatt from a forty (40) megawatt power contract at the rate of 5.42 per kilowatt hour (KWH) estimated to be P367.7 million for one year or P1 million a day burden for CENECO consumers.
The resolution also cited Section 23 of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (EPIRA), and Section 4 (h), Rule 7 of its Implementing Rules and Regulation (IRR) which provide that a Distribution Utility (DU) shall supply electricity “in the least cost manner to its captive market within its franchise area”, subject to collection of retail rates duly approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the Department of Energy Circular No. DC2018-02-0003 (2018 DOE Circular) and its Annex “A.”
Upon compliance with the Competitive Selection Process, the power purchase cost resulting from such compliance should retroact to the date of effectivity of the complying Power Supply Agreement, but in no case earlier than 30 June 2015, for purposes of passing on the power purchase cost to consumers.
CENECO’s “failure to implement the winning bidder’s price of P3.29 and insisted on extending Power Supply Agreement (PSA) at P5.42 per kWh with the latter KSPC for one year (starting May 26)” – the price differential must be refunded also.*
