ANGELES CITY – “We are also a victim.”
Thus said an Angeles Electric Company (AEC) official in reaction to complaints of businessmen here over reported frequent power interruptions causing huge financial loses and lost income opportunities.
In a phone interview on Monday, AEC customer service manager Myra Rivera said the recent blackouts were caused by the National Power Corporation (NPC) and National Transmission Corp. (Transco). She added that the black-out on May 10 which lasted for about eight hours in some areas was caused by the damage at the NPC-Transco line in Mexico, Pampanga.
“We fully understand and share the frustrations of our customers, particularly of businessmen, with the number of outages we have experienced over the last two months. We, too, are in business and with every outage, we also lose revenue,” the AEC said in statement sent through the email.
“The recent outages have been a result of technical trouble within the transmission system of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines or NGCP (formerly Transco) over which we have no control,” it added.
Rivera said that “compared to other areas in Pampanga, the AEC serves better their consumers.”
Rivera said they generate “limited power through our generating plant and source from our IPP, Angeles Power Inc., as an alternative supply source.” But she added that “the capacities of both our IPP and our own generation plant are not enough to supply the requirement of the entire city, thus, the need for power rotation.”
Asked to comment on the questionable billing raised by the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM), Rivera said “we welcome any inquiry on our billing and rates.”
With regard to the rates, she admitted that the cost of electricity has risen over the last three months. The increase, she said, is attributable entirely to the increase in the generation cost, “which is a charge that is passed through to customers from our power suppliers, in this case the NPC and our IPP and is adjusted on a monthly basis based on actual generation costs.”
She added that since March 2009, “there has been a substantial increase in generation costs which we have had to pass on to our customers.”
“The distribution cost is a fixed cost per kilowatt hour that has been approved by the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) and which varies only per customer class. Thus, even if generation costs continue to increase, our distribution charge per kwh remains the same. That this is a fixed cost can be easily verified by our customers in their monthly bill,” the AEC statement said.
”For May 2009, the average cost per kwh for residential customers, which form the bulk of our customers, is P8.05/kwh. Of this, only P0.663 goes to AEC as distribution charge and about P0.572 as supply and metering charge. The rest goes to generation charges, transmission charges, other government charges and VAT which are all pass through charges,” the statement added.
Rivera said that electric bills of consumers usually increase during the summer.
“The compressor of an aircon works harder when it’s summer increasing the consumption of electricity. Same is true with other appliances when the weather is hot,” said Rivera.
Thus said an Angeles Electric Company (AEC) official in reaction to complaints of businessmen here over reported frequent power interruptions causing huge financial loses and lost income opportunities.
In a phone interview on Monday, AEC customer service manager Myra Rivera said the recent blackouts were caused by the National Power Corporation (NPC) and National Transmission Corp. (Transco). She added that the black-out on May 10 which lasted for about eight hours in some areas was caused by the damage at the NPC-Transco line in Mexico, Pampanga.
“We fully understand and share the frustrations of our customers, particularly of businessmen, with the number of outages we have experienced over the last two months. We, too, are in business and with every outage, we also lose revenue,” the AEC said in statement sent through the email.
“The recent outages have been a result of technical trouble within the transmission system of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines or NGCP (formerly Transco) over which we have no control,” it added.
Rivera said that “compared to other areas in Pampanga, the AEC serves better their consumers.”
Rivera said they generate “limited power through our generating plant and source from our IPP, Angeles Power Inc., as an alternative supply source.” But she added that “the capacities of both our IPP and our own generation plant are not enough to supply the requirement of the entire city, thus, the need for power rotation.”
Asked to comment on the questionable billing raised by the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM), Rivera said “we welcome any inquiry on our billing and rates.”
With regard to the rates, she admitted that the cost of electricity has risen over the last three months. The increase, she said, is attributable entirely to the increase in the generation cost, “which is a charge that is passed through to customers from our power suppliers, in this case the NPC and our IPP and is adjusted on a monthly basis based on actual generation costs.”
She added that since March 2009, “there has been a substantial increase in generation costs which we have had to pass on to our customers.”
“The distribution cost is a fixed cost per kilowatt hour that has been approved by the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) and which varies only per customer class. Thus, even if generation costs continue to increase, our distribution charge per kwh remains the same. That this is a fixed cost can be easily verified by our customers in their monthly bill,” the AEC statement said.
”For May 2009, the average cost per kwh for residential customers, which form the bulk of our customers, is P8.05/kwh. Of this, only P0.663 goes to AEC as distribution charge and about P0.572 as supply and metering charge. The rest goes to generation charges, transmission charges, other government charges and VAT which are all pass through charges,” the statement added.
Rivera said that electric bills of consumers usually increase during the summer.
“The compressor of an aircon works harder when it’s summer increasing the consumption of electricity. Same is true with other appliances when the weather is hot,” said Rivera.
