Electricity consumers in Cebu may soon avail themselves of the prepaid electric service that was proposed by the Visayan Electric Company.
This after the Energy Regulatory Commission recently announced that a public consultation on the draft rules for Prepaid Retail Electric Service, using a prepaid metering system, would be held in Cebu on August 26, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the conference room of the National Transmission Corporation in Nasipit, Talamban, Cebu City.
The prepaid retail electric service or PRES is an electric service using a prepaid metering system designed to allow a residential customer to purchase credit and then use electricity until such time as the credit is exhausted.
Jaime Jose Aboitiz, senior vice president and chief operating officer of VECO, in an earlier interview said that a prepaid electricity meter uses the same concept of prepared cellular phones and phone cards where consumers pay in advance for their consumption.
Under Section 5 of the ERC draft rules it stated that the cost of prepaid meters and metering system shall be borne by the distribution utility. Prepaid meter deposits shall not be collected by the distribution utilities (DUs) from their customers.
The draft rules further stated that DUs offering PRES using a prepaid metering system shall allow reasonable means by which the residential customer shall have easy access to the purchase of electric energy to ensure continuous service.
Among the objectives of this kind of system is to provide residential customers a choice for energy usage strategies.
But before DUs offer such service to their customers, they must first get the approval of the ERC of their statement of intent to provide PRES using a prepaid metering system.
The prepaid meter shall be subject to ERC testing and certification and only prepaid meters that meet the standards shall be approved.
DUs, on the other hand, should allow the purchase of electric energy in small increments and the rates to be applied in any prepaid transaction should be based on the previous month’s postpaid effective retail rate. —Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/WAB