Baguio City, Benguet see power rate increase this December

BAGUIO CITY — Power rates in Baguio City and Benguet province have been increased this December, following adjustments announced by the local power distributor.

Consumers will pay P0.23 more per kilowatt-hour (kWh) this month, the power distributor Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) said, blaming increases in generation costs.

The rate increase from P10.7362 per kWh in November to P10.9743 per kWh in December was attributed by Fraiser Angayen, the non-network services department manager of BENECO, to rising global coal prices and fluctuations in foreign exchange (FOREX) rates.

The generation charge is billed to BENECO by its power supplier. As a pass-through charge, BENECO collects this fee from its member-consumers and remits the payment directly to the power supplier. This is similar to the transmission charge, which member-consumers pay to BENECO, and the cooperative in turn forwards it to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), the operator of the country's transmission system.

The rate hike means that residential customers using 100 kWh this December will pay an additional P1,097.30. Meanwhile, low-voltage commercial, industrial, and public building consumers, as well as those using streetlights, will face a P0.2161/kWh increase. High-voltage customers will experience a P0.2321/kWh hike.