Residents of Baguio City and Benguet province are set to benefit from a reduction in their electricity bills this November, as announced by the Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco). The cooperative has confirmed a decrease of 40 centavos per kilowatt hour, bringing the rate down from PHP11.1373 per kWh in October to PHP10.7362 per kWh this month for residential users.
Laarni Ilagan, head of Beneco’s Corporate Communications Office, explained that the reduction is due to a combination of factors including a PHP0.2803 per kWh drop in generation charges, a PHP0.0018 per kWh decrease in transmission charges, and a PHP0.0357 per kWh reduction in system loss charges. This adjustment will provide relief to all Beneco consumers, with a household consuming 100 kWh now paying PHP1,079.23.
Beneco, which serves approximately 200,000 connections across Baguio City and Benguet, attributes the lower rates to its participation in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). Fraiser Angayen, manager of the Non-Network Services Department at Beneco, noted that the cooperative resumed its involvement in WESM last month, which has directly contributed to the reduced generation charges.
The generation and transmission charges, which are passed onto consumers, are collected by Beneco but remitted to the power supplier and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), respectively.