Iloilo city: Iloilo City residents are advised of the increase in their electricity bill of around PHP0.77 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) this November. The residential rate this month is PHP11.8558 per kWh, an increase of PHP0.7687 per kWh from October’s rate of PHP11.08 per kWh. The commercial rate is at PHP11.17 per kWh, up from PHP10.40 per kWh last month.

According to Philippines News Agency, More Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) attributed the adjustment to factors that are ‘outside the control of distribution utilities.’ These included the increase in rates at the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) due to the outage of power plants in Cebu and Mindanao in September. The effective WESM price in the MORE franchise area last month was PHP5.78 per kilowatt-hour, up by PHP1.83 when compared with the rate in September. The peak demand in October was 135.4 megawatts, the power utility said in a statement.

‘PCPC (Palm Concepcion Power Corp.) also had its share of outages toward the end of October that made a tight supply condition and pushed market prices upwards,’ the statement said. The hike was also due to the increase in the Feed-in-Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) to PHP0.2073 this month, from last month’s PHP0.1189/kWh. The FIT-All is used to support renewable energy projects. Further, effective this month, the P0.0025 per kWh universal charge-environmental charge is reinstated since its suspension in May 2020.

Meanwhile, the utility firm said it is working to cushion the effects of the unstable price in the market even if its charges for distribution, supply, and metering (DSM) services are unchanged. ‘One key approach to enhance stability is to firm up our long-term and locally sourced supply –especially within the Visayas region,” MORE Power Manager of Energy Sourcing Raphael Dorilag said.