Ceneco fully refunds consumers over damaged cable payment

February 22, 2022 by No Comments

THE Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) has announced that the refund of the charges for the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) damaged Cebu-Negros submarine cable has been fully implemented.Ceneco Acting Manager Engineer Jose Taniongon, in a statement, recalled that NGCP’s submarine cable in Amlan, Negros Oriental was damaged in June 2021, resulting in the increase in the power rates of Negros and Panay Island electric distribution utilities.Taniongon said the refund is reflected in the generation rate and the implementation of the said adjustments is based on the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines’s (IEMOP) computation.Ceneco refunded a total of P279,559,295.83 to its consumers from November 2021 to January 2022.Meanwhile, the power utility firm also announced that for the billing month of January 2022, they implemented the recovery of Real Property Taxes (RPT) paid for the year 2021 in the total amount of P12.5 million.This one-time collection of P0.2018 per kilowatt hour (kWh) is a valid pass-through charge per Section 4.6 of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Resolution 20, Series of 2009, Taniongon said.Under which, current RPTs that are paid by the electric cooperatives (ECs) are deemed part of their operating costs and allowed by ERC for recovery from all member-consumers, he said.Ceneco is authorized under the aforesaid resolution to collect the determined RPT from its member-consumer-owners as a separate line item in the bill.Ceneco is the largest power distributor in Negros Occidental supplying electricity to the highly urbanized city of Bacolod and the neighboring cities of Bago, Silay and Talisay, as well as to the towns of Don Salvador Benedicto and Murcia.