By BOY RYAN B. ZABAL
KALIBO, Aklan — A barrage of complaints from consumers rained on the Aklan Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Akelco) for its “surprising” rate increase.
Household and commercial consumers vented their dissatisfaction over local radio stations and the social networking site Facebook.
In their June billing, residential consumers using 21 kilowatt-hour and above had to pay P12.6067 per kilowatt-hour — an increase of P1.765 per kilowatt-hour from the previous rate of P11.4298.
Commercial and industrial establishments, on the other hand, were billed an additional P1.1753 per kilowatt-hour. From P10.4850 per kilowatt-hour in May, they have to pay P11.6602 for June.
Rence Oczon, the cooperative’s public information officer, said the rate increase was due to the increase in the cost of generation charges from power suppliers, the systems loss and the consumption during the hot summer months.
Alice, a housewife with three children here, was shocked upon seeing that her latest electricity bill rose to P4,000 from P1,998 when their power consumption was almost similar to what was indicated in their May billing.
“Lahat yata tumaas na ang presyo (The price of everything seemed to have increased),” she lamented. “[They have] more than doubled.”
In her bill, generation charge accounts for 63 percent while residential distribution charge makes up 4.5 percent of the total charge.
Alice needs to pay an additional P2,000, which could already shoulder her telephone, water and cable bills for June.
In its official rate advisory, Akelco also cited the higher power prices from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
Akelco gets power from its bilateral contracts with independent power producers and WESM for an average generation cost of P6.4163 per kilowatt-hour from January to April.
WESM prices are influenced by the peso-dollar exchange rate, cost of fuel used in power generation, and the supply and demand conditions.
Oczon encouraged consumers to call or visit the Akelco main office or sub-offices to assist them in computing their electricity consumption.
She also encouraged them to review their billing records and to report defective electric meters.
Akelco has earlier reminded its member-consumers to use electricity wisely and conserve energy. (Aklan Forum Journal/PN)
