BAGUIO CITY – Consumers of the Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) will be experiencing a slight increase in their monthly power bills following the imposition of a P0.0590 per kilowatthour rate hike for the feed in tariff (FIT) component of their power rate as approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
The FIT all component of the power rate is being used by the government, through the National Transmission Corporation, to provide the mandatory incentives to the developers of renewable power plants pursuant to the provisions of the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 and other related energy laws.
From the previous P0.1240 per kilowatthour FIT all rate, the new FIT all rate that will be collected from all the power consumers nationwide will be P1830 per kilowatthour effective June billing.
Earlier, the ERC authorized Transco to collect an additional Feed in Tariff allowance of P0.0590 per kilowatthour pursuant to ERC Case No. 2015-2016RC, in the matter of the application for the approval of the Feed in Tariff allowance for the 2016 pursuant to the guidelines for collection of the said rate component and the disbursement of the generated fund.
Transco received a copy of the ERC decision on May 18, 2017, thus, BENECO as a collection agent of the FIT-All fund should implement the new rate component starting June this year billing period consistent with the ERC issuance.
Gerardo P. Verzosa, BENECo general manager, pointed out the increase in the rate component as ordered by the ERC will simply be passed on to the consumers by the rural electric cooperative being a collection agent of the fund as clearly specified under the ERC ruling.
He said BENECO cannot do anything but to collect what has been ordered by the REC to be collected and to remit the funds to the Transco which is the designated administrator of the FIT-AL rate.
By HENT
