Hydro Power Plants in Catanduanes Philippines

February 17th, 2012 by Filipino | Posted under The News.


By Danny O. Calleja

The howling over the latest power rate increase approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERD) for the province has been drowned out by the fact that the two hydro power plants now supplying the locality 3.6 megawatts (MW) have been keeping the rate lower.

Late last year, the ERC gave the green light to the National Power Corporation (NPC) to raise by P1.4282 per kilowatt hour (kwh) its charges on consumers being served by the government-owned power firm’s Small Power Utilities Group (SPUG) effective January this year until 2016.

The increase would allow the NPC to recover within a four-year period P4 billion of its P12 billion losses to fuel and foreign exchange incurred by the operations of the SPUG in the country from 2005 to 2009.

Part of these fuel cost losses amounting to about P537 million, according to the NPC, was incurred by the Catanduanes SPUG facility which is the 2.2-MW Marinawa diesel plant that supplies 30 percent of the province’s total power requirement.

The rate that raises from P11.15 to P12.58 per kwh the cost of electricity being supplied by the NPC through its petroleum-fed generating facilities and distributed by the First Catanduanes Electric Cooperative (FICELCO) drew howls from the province’s consumers who recently turned to President Benigno Aquino III in asking for a reprieve.

“We are terribly worried that the power hike, implemented abruptly, would deprive a large number of consumers of whatever savings from their monthly income, with the extra cost of power better spent for other vital household needs such as education, health and food,” they said in the letter to the President.

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