What We Should Know?

The Philippines and other tropical countries near the equator experience only two seasons, dry and wet. In the energy industry, these same seasons are applied which have signi cant e ect on rates; January to June cover the dry while wet in July to December whence rates differ at certain hours, at which hour (9:00 AM) hits the largest variance. And ge ing here the second half of the year, the basic energy rates (BER) would be lower.

Looking into the applied electric prices wherein the distribution utility is acquiring the power supply under the bilateral contract, the BER in wet season is about PhP0.20 per kilowa -hour lower than the dry season. This varies depending on the usage of the consumers. This year, the average BER from January to June is PhP 4.3293/kWh while PhP 4.1324/kWh from July to August.

Aside from the months or seasons, there are contributing factors a ecting the effective rate on the generation side which include the
following:

1. Time of Use (TOU)
2. Indices
a. Fuel Cost Index
b. Consumer’s Price Indices (CPI)

i. US CPI
ii. Philippine CPI
3. Foreign Exchange

Most power suppliers are charging the electric utilities based on the TOU for the purchased energy; PENELCO is included particularly with the existing bilateral contract. In here, rates are high commencing 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM, at dry and wet seasons respectively, until 9:00 PM. During these hours enter the peak load, thus collectively give rise to rates. Further, Sundays and Holidays have lesser rate than Mondays to Saturdays, yet only few in a month correspond to these days, hence the chance here to impinge on rate reduction is minimal.

Another substantial aspects are the indices (Fuel Cost and Consumer’s Prices) and Foreign Exchange rate; these are the factors employed in the computation of basic energy rate adjustment (BE ) of the power supplier, which are directly proportional to the electric rates; the higher the indices and foreign exchange rates, so with the electric rates.

Among these, all end-users have great contributions to lower the rate through the effective time of use of electric power. On top of this, the early payment of electric bills would eventually result in lowering the electric prices, that is, the end-users would support the distribution utility to pay the obligations to power supplier on time to continuously avail of the (1) Collection Effciency Discount (CED), maximum of PhP0.30 per kWh, and (2) 3% Prompt Payment Discount (PPD) which both are passed-on to the end-users through rate
reduction.

SCHEDULE OF RATES