By: April Therese Tan
The country’s second largest power distributor, the Visayan Electric will implement a P0.50-centavo per kwh increase in its average residential rates for the billing month of October-November due to the weakening peso and the continuous increase in the prices of coal in the world market.
The increase pushes the average rate for Visayan Electric residential customers to P15.87 per kWh, from the P15.37 per kWh rate for the month of September. This translates to a total of P100-increase for a household with an average monthly electricity consumption of 200kWh.
The price of coal in the world market has been increasing since January mainly due to the increase in demand for coal as world economies recovered from the lockdowns due to COVID-19. This was further exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war that saw the imposition of trade embargoes, affecting the coal supply chain.
Coal is widely used by power generators to produce energy that powers our homes and industries. Due to the high prices of coal in the world market, the price of electricity in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) is also high since most of the power generators that sell power to WESM are coal-fired power plants.
The weakening peso, which is already at P58-59 to the US dollar, has also contributed to the increase in electricity rates.
“While we really cannot control world market forces, one thing that we can advise our customers is to conserve electricity especially now that the rates are increasing,” said Engr. Raul C. Lucero, president and chief operating officer of Visayan Electric in a press statement.
He, however, said that the increase is driven by the generation rate and that the Visayan Electric distribution rate has remained at an average of P1.5992 per kWh since 2014, as approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).