Business: Ceneco to Consumers: Brace for Series Cost Increases Estimated P0.80 (3)

There are items in the monthly electric billing or statement of account which Central Negros Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Ceneco) wished to clarify for the

education of its consumers and because these will eventually appear in said billing.

File photo of PEDC President Art Aguilar who was then guest speaker in MBCCI year end gathering. Despite being President of a coal-fired power plant, he advocated for the retooling of Negros’s nine active sugar mill’s co-generator with a potential power of 200 mWh and could be initially priced at P7.00 per kWh of VAT free renewable energy.* (Gil Severino photo)

These items are likewise cost to be added and will appear in the Ceneco monthly billing; they are the so-called "GRAM", "ICERA" and the "Ceneco CAPEX", the latter has not been disclosed yet for public scrutiny or sanctioned by the appropriate national government agency especially the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

GRAM stands for Generation Rate Adjustment Mechanism which is a quarterly automatic recovery adjustment mechanism for Ceneco to cope with changes in fuel prices and the generation cost charged by independent power producers (IPP).

ICERA on the other hand stands for Incremental Currency Exchange Rate which is also a quarterly adjustment to reflect changes in foreign currency exchanges.

GRAM and ICERA are legitimate fuel, purchased power and foreign currency costs passed on to consumers by IPPs with prior approval of ERC; these are IPP costs incurred during the supply of electricity to Ceneco estimated to P0.60.

The ERC has already mitigated the impact of these adjustments by spreading their recovery over a longer period and by coming out with speedy decisions to avoid additional carrying charges (cost of deferred recovery) to be included in the recoverable amounts (DOE Website).

Meanwhile, Ceneco’s Capital Expenditures and Investments (CAPEX) are not yet ready for public disclosure but nevertheless, it is best that consumers must be informed of this ahead of time.

CAPEX is both an expense and investment intended to install efficiency improvement projects and rehabilitation of fully depreciated facilities.

The "True UP" over/under recovery application submitted to and heard by ERC last June 8 consultation hearing could cover portion of Ceneco’s CAPEX.

Ocular inspection of Ceneco posts, voltage regulators and wiring facilities are mostly decrepit, some portions are vandalized or pilfered thus the increase frequency of "trips" and lately, rain lightning caused wiring sparks thus the urgent need to allocate an amount charged to CAPEX.

Also, Ceneco plans to fully computerized its substations networking to immediately identify systems loss thereby reducing lead time of power outages and quick response which could lower cost in the long run.*