March 6, 2015
BUSECO encourages energy conservation
Pursuant to the mandate of Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 or EPIRA to privatize the National Power Corporation’s assets through the management of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM), Mt. Apo 1 and 2 geothermal power plants located in Kidapawan North Cotabato was eventually privatized on the last quarter of 2014. It has seriously affected the power supply of Mindanao electric cooperatives, including BUSECO, which led to the reduction of BUSECO’s Contract for the Supply of Electric Energy (CSEE) with PSALM starting January 2015. This is manifested by the letter of PSALM dated November 5, 2014 informing BUSECO of the reduction of its CSEE, from the average contracted demand of 9MW it was reduced to 6MW or a 33% reduction.
With the sudden reduction of BUSECO’s contract with PSALM effective January 2015 and the inevitable increase of BUSECO’s demand of power supply due to the fast growing development of the province of Bukidnon, there is an urgent need to procure additional power supply to prevent 6 to 8 hours of rotational brown outs in the Cooperative’s franchise in 2015 to 2016.
For this reason, BUSECO signed a 10MW Electric Power Purchase Agreement (EPPA) for two 2 years with the winning bidder of the Independent Power Producer Administrator (IPPA) of Mt. Apo 1 and 2 as a stop gap measure until the power plants of the power suppliers contracted by the Cooperative will be in commercial operation starting year 2017.
Prior to the signing of the EPPA, BUSECO endeavors to consider the following available alternatives as an option.
As shown in the table, Mt. Apo 1 and 2 Geothermal power plant is the most advantageous, beneficial and reasonable option among others considering that it has the cheapest blended generation rate and the lowest rate increase of only Php 1.9927/kwh.
On December 18, 2014, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Provisionally Approves the EPPA between BUSECO and FDC Misamis Power Corporation after conducting a public hearing on November 26, 2014 at the BUSECO Main Office Tankulan Manolo Fortich Bukidnon. The Commission’s approval was benchmarked on the proposed rates with its recently approved Power Supply Agreements involving geothermal power plants and found that the same is comparable or within the level of the said power plants. Further, the Commission ensures that the tariffs imposed are consistent with the principle of full recovery of prudent and reasonable costs.
With this, BUSECO inform its Member-Consumer-Owners of the following expected increases on its electric bill effective February 2015 billing:
| KWH Consumption | Increment (Php) |
| 25 kwh | 50.37 |
| 50 kwh | 100.74 |
| 100 kwh | 201.48 |
| 150 kwh | 302.22 |
| 200 kwh | 402.96 |
As a precautionary measure, BUSECO encourages its Member-Consumer-Owners to conserve energy by doing the following typical electric energy conservation:
- Unplug appliances when they are not in use
- Replace old appliances with energy-saving models
- Install Efficient Lighting
- Reduce your reliance on appliances
- Iron Clothes in Bulk
- Check your household grounding system
Onwards and soar high BUSECO!
