Ilocos Norte consumers grapple with rising power rates

LAOAG CITY—The city council on Wednesday launched an inquiry into the high power rates in Ilocos Norte province amid complaints from local consumers.

The Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative (Inec) said higher rates were being collected from local consumers mainly due to the rising prices of coal and gasoline, and the diminishing value of the peso against the dollar.

According to Inec, the residential power rate in the province jumped to P16.77 per kilowatt-hour this month from only P14.31 per kWh in June. The increase excluded the value added tax and other government charges, Inec said in a statement on Tuesday.

The generation charge, which comprises 74 percent of a consumer’s total electricity bill, also increased to P12.44 per kWh this month from P10.28 per kWh in June. The generation charge was only P4.60 per kWh in June last year.

Cherry Mae Madriaga, a project management analyst at a business process outsourcing company, said the electricity bill at her home in San Nicolas town was already higher than an employee’s basic salary.

“Since I started working, I have been helping pay our household’s monthly bills. I was never anxious about the amount to be paid, not until this July,” Madriaga said in a Facebook post.

Appeal

She used to pay around P4,000 for the family’s monthly electricity consumption, but their bill this month jumped to over P11,000.

Madriaga and other power consumers in the province have appealed to authorities to help bring down the increasing cost of electricity.

Gov. Matthew Marcos Manotoc said the provincial government was already looking for ways to address the increasing power rates.

“I would like to reassure [the consumers] that for the past few months, I have been working with Inec, the national government, and relevant parties to lower our electricity rates,” Manotoc said in a statement on Tuesday.

In a separate statement also on Tuesday, Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos said the Energy Regulatory Commission had committed to look into the cause of soaring electricity rates by reviewing the power supply contracts entered into by Inec.

At the city council’s inquiry, Inec general manager Felino Herbert Agdigos said that the cooperative had entered into a 20-year contract with power supplier Masinloc Power Partners Co. Ltd. (MPPCL). The contract was the subject of bidding for a 51-megawatt continuous energy supply.

Agdigos said the renewable energy companies and plants operating in the province had not participated in the bidding because the “windmills, solar [power plants] cannot produce continuously for 24 hours.”

Ilocos Norte hosts renewable energy companies, including wind farms in the towns of Burgos, Bangui and Pagudpud. The province also hosts an expanding solar farm in Currimao town.

Apart from MPPCL, Inec also gets its power supply from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market and its mini hydropower plant in Pagudpud. The latter could only supply less than 2 percent of the 58-MW capacity requirement in the province, said Agdigos.

Of the 58-MW requirement, 51 MW are sourced from MPPCL, a coal-fired power plant.