ILOILO CITY – People in this city are still paying the cheapest electricity in Western Visayas despite the increase of P1.02 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in this month's billing,

A LINEMAN of MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) in Iloilo City. (Tara Yap)
Lone power distributor MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) is still charging the cheapest with the P11.3263 per kWh for the May 18 to June 12 billing.
The average in the region is around P15 per kWh.
In a report by the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association Inc. (PHILRECA), electricity rates increased by an average of P2.21842 per kWh for the May to June 2024 billing compared to the April to May 2024 billing.
PHILRECA said that this spike in electricity rate for May to June was due to the generation cost of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
“In anticipation of the increase in demand for the summer, we have secured bilateral contracts of 66 percent. Thus, our exposure to WESM is only 34 percent. In fact, our energy purchases for this billing cycle have increased by 19 percent,” said Niel V. Parcon, MORE Power vice president for Corporate Energy Sourcing and Regulatory Affairs.