ILOILO City – MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) will explain today the increase in its power rate before the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP).
MORE Power, the sole power distributor in the city, started operating in February 2020.
“There is a need for MORE Power to be invited in the public hearing to properly inform, educate, and disseminate necessary and all information relative to power rate increases, and business practices…,” read part of an SP resolution sponsored by Councilor Romel Duron on the city’s power rate.
In previous months, MORE Power had the lowest power rate in the country.
In the last 14 months, its consumers enjoyed a lower generation rate as a result of the company’s efforts to source the most cost-effective power generation supply.
But continuing oil price hikes and the weakening of the peso against the dollar did not spare the distribution utility.
Last month, it announced an increase in its power rate by P3.34 more per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
From P9.14 per kWh in August, the rate for September billing would already be P12.48 per kWh.
Despite this, however, MORE Power remains to have one of the lowest power rates in the Visayas, if not in the whole country, based on the latest available and published rates of private distribution utilities and electric cooperatives in the Visayas.
Earlier, MORE explained that the increase in power rates is mainly due to the high coal prices in the global market coupled with the weakening of the peso against the dollar.
In the last quarter of 2021, the price of the coal was at an average 60 US dollars per metric ton. But at the onset of 2022, the price started to surge; it is now at US$404 per metric ton — five times higher or 575 percent up.
The triggers are the halt in coal exportation from other countries and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which is one of the world’s largest suppliers of coal.
It can be noted that most of the distribution utilities in the country have already procured and got supply contracts with coal-fired power plants being one of the cheapest, reliable, and with huge availability of supply before.
Around 50 to 70 percent of the procured electricity of the distribution utilities are sourced from coal-fired power plants.
This explains why there is an increase in generation cost following the fuel price hike. Because the generation cost is a “pass through” charge in distribution utilities, it is eventually passed on to the end-users – the consumers./PN
