KALIBO, Aklan – With the rising fuel costs, the sole power distributor in Aklan and northern towns of Antique has urged its member-consumers to conserve electricity.
The escalating Russia-Ukraine war and the weak peso are having an impact on power generation costs.
In a radio interview, Aklan Electric Cooperative (Akelco) general manager Atty. Ariel Gepty said consumers could cut costs of electricity bills as coal and gas prices continue to rise.
Residential consumers of Akelco and part of Antique saw electricity rates at P12.4514 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in February from P11.5632 per kWh in January, but it goes down to P12.1498 per kWh in March due to a decrease in generation costs of P0.5722 per kWh and system loss of P0.0311 per kWh.
Rising coal prices in the world market in recent days are impacting the operations of power suppliers.
The Newcastle coal spot price soared to $425 per tonne on March 7 from $239 per tonne on February 24, the date of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the coal prices dipped slowly to $368.65 per tonne on March 11.
Coal accounted for about 35 percent of global electricity.
Akelco sourced its power supply from coal-fired power plants of Palm Concepcion Power Concepcion and Panay Energy Development Corporation, aside from Green Core Geothermal Corporation and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market for the franchise area.
Gepty said the power distributor is also not keen to renew its electric power purchase agreement with independent power producer Mirant Global Philippines./PN
