MikeLigalig.com

By Bohol Chronicle

The Bohol Light Company, Inc. (BLCI) is asking the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to relax the side constraints to prevent the power rates from abruptly spiking up and minimize the sudden increase.

After skirting the city government's attempt to stall again last Monday's hearing on the translation of the ERC-approved Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) under the Performance Based Regulation (PBR) for the regulatory period 2012-2015, BLCI is left with the side constraint issue to deal with the ERC as the implementation of the new rates nears.

In their pleading, BLCI requested ERC to ease a bit the maximum allowable formula that the electric firm can impose in the rate setting.

BLCI's current side constraint is at 16 percent wherein 4.96 percent is based on the consumer price index for inflation and 12 percent for profit margin relative to return of investment measurement which has been set as industry standard.

However, in BLCI's computation, the side constraints already reached almost 24 percent.

The city government, supposed intervenor—represented by City Councilors Bebiano Inting, Nerio Zamora II and Doni Piquero, also wanted to explore the cost allocation.

According to Inting, it could have been affected by the cost allocation wherein it is considered that if the rate for commercial consumers will be increased further, they would already cross the side constraints allowed by ERC.

Inting cited the BLCI computation wherein the cost allocation was divided based on the number of customers, instead of allocating it to the total wattage of power supply that they produce or distribute to different customer classes.

The city councilor also questioned the lifeline rates for discounted customers wherein the it used to be only those who consumed 55 kWH that were covered in the lifeline rates. But in the new set up, BLCI raised it to 65 kWH. He said the 0-20 kWH consumption used to be subjected to 50 percent but now it is made to 100 discount.

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