The biggest drop in power price

By Herbert Vego

DESPITE the pandemic, MORE Electric and Power Corporation is giving its customers in Iloilo City a prize – lower price of electricity starting the present month of July.

Residential consumers would henceforth be billed an average of only P6.45 per kilowatt-hour – plummeting from the ten-peso June rate for a big savings of P3.55. The P6.45 rate, probably the lowest in the Philippines, shames the P10.15 Metro Manila rate currently imposed by the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

Therefore, a typical household consuming 300kWh per month would save a whopping P1,067 in their July 2021 electricity bill.

We learned about this yesterday during a virtual press conference with MORE Power President Roel Z. Castro, corporate planning head Niel Parcon, energy savings manager Kaye Elequin, and, press relations officer Jonathan Cabrera.

Castro said that the company had always sought ways and means to keep power rates low for both residential and commercial users in order to stimulate business growth; and that he had been in constant touch with Mayor Jerry Treñas and Senator Franklin Drilon on how to do it.

One recalls that only last May, residential rates in Iloilo City had decreased from P10.52 to P10.27 per kilowatt-hour.

“Our efforts have paid off as revealed by our expanding market,” Castro revealed. “When we took over the operation of the former distribution utility, our customers numbered 62,000.  Today, it is approaching 85,000.”

Castro cited the installation of their “switching station” at barangay Banuyao, La Paz as a big leap in cost reduction. It has enabled the distribution utility to directly connect with the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP); and to directly purchase power supply through the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), the online venue for the competitive trading of electricity as a commodity.

He attributed the latest power reduction to MORE Power’s linkage with the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) for full utilization of renewable energy from its geothermal plant in Leyte.  This should be good news to environmentalists who decry the “dirty” energy from fossil fuels.

Concerning brownouts blamed on MORE, Castro revealed they are often a result of power trip-offs resulting from accidents and natural deterioration of power lines. It is not possible to upgrade facilities without shutting off power.

“We counted 1,480 electric posts that have to be replaced,” he said. “Rusting and obsolete wires have to be replaced, too. They have been there since the 1970s or 1980s.”

Oh well, since haste makes waste,  let us give MORE more time – say, within its five-year development plan budgeted at P1.9 billion – to live up to our expectation.

Don’t you agree, Migo Randy Pastolero?

WANTED: MORE COOPERATIVE BARANGAY OFFICIALS

IF it’s MORE Power you blame for brownouts in Iloilo City, think again. More than anybody else, the company suffers loss of income for every minute that it fails to deliver power.

But if the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) lacks enough power supply from private generators to transmit to all distribution utilities, there is no way to prevent rotational brownouts.

The continuous upgrading of facilities also necessitates scheduled brownout.  It is impossible and dangerous to do it with power on.

More often than not, however, the distribution utilities (including electric cooperatives) conk out due to power pilferage that overloads transformers.

In a previous column, this writer echoed the headache of MORE Power President Roel Z. Castro over barangay officials who renege on paying bills accumulated by barangay halls and other barangay facilities.

There are exceptions, however. One of them is barangay chairman Pascual “Sipil” Espinosa IV of Barangay San Juan, who personally enjoins his constituents to refrain from stealing electricity and to pay their bills promptly. If I heard it right, his barangay has hit “zero pilferage.”

“Just economize on use of electricity,” he tells his constituents who run short of budget.

We beg of ex-officio councilor Irene Ong, as head of the city’s Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) to spearhead the clean-up drive against power pilferage and commend cooperative barangay chairs and councilmen.

LEGARDA-CADIAO SPLIT IMMINENT?

THE first time I heard about it, I sensed fighting between Antique’s two lady political titans over the spoils of whatever “war”.

Since I am not in the position to decipher the sudden break-up hounding Congresswoman Loren Legarda and Governor Rhodora “Dodod” Cadiao, let me just state a backgrounder.

Remember when I once wrote here about the alleged intention of a brother of Legarda – Antonio “AA” Bautista Legarda — to replace her, since she is running for senator, in 2022?

Here comes a group of Antiqueños calling themselves “Team Asenso Antiqueño” and endorsing AA Legarda for congressman, Vicente Fedelecio for governor, and Julius Cesar Tajanlangit. With the exception of Tajanlangit who is an ex-officio member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, the two in the trio are tyro politicians.

Maraming dahilan kuno ang Cadiao-Legarda split in their material world.  How many?  Or how much?

Ating alamin. Meanwhile, Nonoy Eric “dies-dies” crying.