Iloilo City’s new distribution utility More Electric and Power Corp. committed to further reduce the system loss charge to as low as 4.75 percent by 2022.
MORE Power spokesman Jonathan Cabrera said the company’s system’s loss to date is at 6 percent, lower than the 6.25-percent cap required by the Energy Regulatory Commission, contrary to the claim of rival Panay Electric Co.
Cabrera said MORE Power’s systems loss would further go down to 5.5 percent by 2021 and to 4.75 percent by 2022 as the company aggressively runs after illegal connections or “jumpers.”
He denied the claim of consumer group Koalisyon Bantay Kuryente that MORE Power’s systems electricity loses jumped to 12 percent when it started operations in March this year, adding that the same computation was based on wrong formula and wrong interpretation of the ERC’s own official rules.
He said the system loss presented by KBK used the number in the system loss charge in MORE Power’s monthly bill and divided it against the generation charge.
Cabrera said that in reality, systems loss charge is proportional to both the generation and transmission charge and not just on generation charge alone as shown in Aquino’s formula.
He said that if using the formula of KBK, PECO’s system loss for the month of February would have reached 8.13 percent, a rate much higher than the 7.17 percent that the consumer group presented as MORE Power’s system loss.
Meanwhile, MORE Power president Roel Castro renewed his appeal to PECO to reconcile with MORE Power for the good of the city.
“The relationship of MORE Power and PECO should not be viewed as a corporate war. More Power has nothing to do with PECO. We are here in Iloilo City not because we are after PECO but we are after the sorry state of facilities here, plagued with complaints of poor service, customer case and high electricity rates,” said Castro.
Castro said it is painful for PECO to lose its franchise after nearly 100 years in the business, but it should put the interest of consumers and Iloilo City above everything else.
“There are consumers involved here. If PECO looks at that perspective then they really should give way. We respect and understand that what they’re going through is painful, but at the end of the day, it’s the court and the regulator that will decide on the matter, whatever and whoever is affected should respect the decision,” he said.
PECO's franchise expired in January 2019 and was not renewed by Congress over numerous complaints about its service including pole fires and outages caused by dilapidated facilities and overbilling.
The Energy Regulatory Commission revoked its certificate of public convenience while the Iloilo City government did not issue a business permit to PECO.