Iloilo power costs fall as prices of coal drop

ILOILO CITY—Iloilo City residents will enjoy a significant drop in electricity rates due to a decline in coal prices.

The Panay Electric Co. (Peco), the city’s lone power distributor which services 53,000 households, commercial establishments and offices, announced that it lowered its rates by 47 centavos per kilowatt-hour, which will be reflected in the August bill of its consumers.

Engineer Randy Pastolero, Peco vice president for operations, said the drop in rates will bring down electricity rates from P11.57 per kWh to P11.10 per kWh for residential consumers and from P11.37 per kWh to P10.90 per kWh for commercial users.

Pastolero said the drop in charges was due to lower prices of coal used by the coal-fired power plant of Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC), a subsidiary of the Global Business Power Corp. (GBPC). PEDC operates the 164-megawatt coal-fired power plant in La Paz District here, which supplies bulk of electricity to Peco.

He said fuel charges of PEDC dropped from P2.90 per kWh to P2.40 per kWh.

Gil Altamira, GBPC commercial operations manager, said coal prices fell in the world market, including those that the plant buys from Indonesia and Semirara in Antique. Coal from Indonesia is of higher grade than that from Semirara and transporting coal from Semirara to Iloilo is also cheaper, he said.