‘KSPC ends contract with CENECO, rates go up, just as I predicted’: Gamboa

May 2, 2022

Jun Gamboa – Lone Opposition Councilor and Vice Mayor Candidate Wilson “Jun” Gamboa, Jr. explained that the CENECO consumers-members-owners will suffer higher rates owing to the contract disengagement with KSPC, as he predicted.* **(GYSJ)**

Bacolod lone opposition Councilor Wilson Gamboa, Jr. reiterated over the weekend that the time has come when the consumer-member-owners of Central Electric Cooperative, Inc. (CENECO) will shoulder the price differential of the extended contract amount of P5.29/kWh against the Time of Use (TOU) rate of only P3.59/kWh or an aggregate amount of about P218 million which is to be paid by CENECO resulting from the disengagement of a 44-megawatt extension contract with KEPCO SPC Power Corporation (KSPC) effective April 26, 2022 and declared illegal by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

Gamboa explained that the KSPC contract disengagement cannot be passed-on to consumer-member-owners and forced CENECO management to obtain supply of power to its franchise area from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) pegged at a much higher price the lowest is at P7.00/kWh.

He stressed that with this move by CENECO, consumer-member-owners will suffer a much higher electricity cost and experience rotational “load-shedding” supply of electricity owing to the open market instability compared to a contracted supply with KSPC.

As early as 2021, ERC had ruled that subject KSPC-Power Supply Agreement (PSA) extension remained unapproved, therefore considered “ineligible contracts” and that CENECO must comply with the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) prescribed by the Department of Energy (DOE).

CENECO, however, insisted on extending Power Supply Agreement (PSA) at P5.42 per kWh with KSPC for one year, starting May 26, 2021, estimated to be this P368 million at that time for one year or a whooping P1 million a day burden for CENECO consumers-members-owners and only to be ruled out by ERC to be illegal.

Gamboa added, “To cope with the 44-megawatt disengaged by KSPC, CENECO is forced to buy power from the open-spot market WESM at much higher prices from P7/kWh to about P12/kWh, causing the rates paid by member-consumer-owner to a very high unexpected amount. Thus, explained the sudden and continuous rising electric power billings for the past three months.”

He said that this deplorable sky-rocketing CENECO rate increase situation happening now prompted him to file a resolution for the next regular Sangguninag Panlungsod (SP) session, May 3, 2022, “Respectfully requesting the management of CENECO to provide the SP their computation table for the electric generation charges and power systems losses for the months of January to April 2022.”

“Knowledge of CENECO computations will somehow assuage the afflictions suffered by consumers-members-owners at this time of the pandemic and I will continue to push for the refund of this overpriced CENECO miscalculation,” Gamboa also said.* (GABS)