Iloilo consumers face higher June electricity bills

ILOILO CITY — Consumers of MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) will see an increase in their electricity bills this June, driven by skyrocketing generation costs and a crippled power supply in the Visayas grid.

The distribution utility announced an overall rate hike of P2.04 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). For residential consumers, the rate will climb to P13.91/kWh from last month’s P11.87/kWh. Meanwhile, the commercial rate will increase to P13.04/kWh from P11.00/kWh.

READ: Tight electricity supply persists over Visayas

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According to MORE Power, the price adjustment is primarily due to soaring costs in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), where prices more than doubled from P4.45/kWh to P10.30/kWh. Consequently, the generation charge—a pass-through cost paid directly to power generation companies—surged to P7.735/kWh from the previous P2.10/kWh.

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The spike in generation costs stems from a critical supply shortage in the Visayas grid. Recently, the region was placed under red alert for three days and a Yellow Alert for 12 days, a status that continues to linger.

This power deficiency was triggered by the forced outages of three major coal-fired power plants: Units 1 and 2 of Aboitiz Power Therma Visayas Inc. (169 MW each) and Unit 3 of Panay Energy Development Corporation (150 MW). The combined outages wiped out a massive 488 megawatts (MW) from the grid.

Compounding the supply issues are transmission constraints. MORE Power explained that the Luzon-Visayas connection and the Leyte-Cebu submarine cable have limited capacities. Forcing a massive supply of electricity through these lines could cause them to trip, potentially triggering a wider system failure across the power grid.

Furthermore, the intense heat of the dry season has driven up consumer demand, creating a classic supply-and-demand imbalance that ultimately pulls prices upward.

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To cushion the impact on Ilonggo consumers, MORE Power maximized its cheaper bilateral contracts. For the June billing cycle, the company sourced 62 percent of its total power supply from these bilateral agreements, relying on the highly volatile WESM for only the remaining 38 percent.

The utility company also clarified that its own distribution charge remains entirely unchanged. MORE Power has not implemented any increase in its distribution charge for the past three years.

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READ: Visayas power supply may stay unstable until August

While some consumers anticipated a staggered payment system to ease the immediate financial burden, MORE Power opted against it. The company explained that delaying payments would only cause consumer bills to pile up and become unmanageable in the coming months.

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MORE Power assured the public that its distribution infrastructure is fully capable of receiving and distributing a larger electricity supply. But the current problem lies entirely with the generation sector’s lack of supply. /coa