GUIMARAS – Baseless, inaccurate and malicious. This was how Guimaras Electric Cooperative (GUIMELCO) described the assertions that it has the “highest electricity rate in the planet.”
“The rate passed on by GUIMELCO is governed and regulated by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) through the Rate Setting for Electric Cooperatives – Wheeling Rate (RSEC-WR) per approved resolution 20, series of 2009 dated Sept. 23, 2009. The RSEC-WR uses various data such as the energy sales and the number of total consumers in determining the allowable pass-on charges of the distribution utility,” it explained.
If GUIMELCO were to be believed, one of the major reasons for erratic electricity rates is the variance in the cost of power or the generation charge.
Currently, its average generation rate covering the period January 2021 to August 2021 billing is P5.1729 per kilowatt hour (kWh).
“The generation charge depends on various factors: supply and demand, cost of electricity in the spot market, and the fuel cost which is beyond GUIMELCO’s control since power generators have the sole authority to charge the same based on the prevailing market prices,” the electric cooperative clarified.
GUIMELCO also said the wind farm operating in Guimaras is not supplying it with power.
It was reacting to claims that the electric cooperative could lower its rate if it sources its power from the Guimaras Wind Farm.
On the contrary, according to GUIMELCO, such move would jack up its rate.
It offered this explanation: “(The Energy Regulatory Commission) Decision on the application of construction of the Guimaras Wind Farm as per ERC Case No. 2014-032 MC stated that, ‘To dispatch the power to be generated by the San Lorenzo Wind Farm Project, it proposes to be connected to the Visayas Grid through the transmission system of the (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines), which is the most feasible means to dispatch power and put into beneficial use the generated capacity of the said San Lorenzo Wind Farm Project.”
“If the allegation that the wind farm can supply at P6 to P7, that would increase the total effective rate per kWh,” according to GUIMELCO.
Even so, it stressed, “it is not true that GUIMELCO has the highest power rate even in the region. The effective rate of GUIMELCO for the billing month of August 2021 is only P9.9694 per kWh for residential consumers and P8.5223 per kWh for low voltage.”
“In fact, nowhere in the past five years have we charged a consumer more than P13 per kWh,” it stressed.
Based on the ERC 2020 data, GUIMELCO’s power rate is within the median of all the power distributors in the country. Accordingly, statista.com recorded that Germany has the highest electricity rate in the world at 0.37 US dollars or about P18.13 per kWh.
Likewise, out of the per kWh charges, only the Distribution, Supply and Metering charges which is only more or less 25 percent are kept by GUIMELCO to finance its day-to-day operation. The rest of its collected revenues are being remitted to power suppliers, NGCP, and the government./PN
