Davao power firm ups rate

DAVAO CITY — Davao City residents will be paying at least P.1927 per kilowatt hour (kwH) more in their electricity bills as the Davao Light and Power Co. (DLPC) implements the increase next month after holding it back for 11 years.

Alfonso Aboitiz, DLPC president and chief executive officer, said the company can no longer postpone the power rate increase since the National Power Corp. (Napocor) has been imposing an average increase of 12.7 percent yearly on power utilities.

While generation charges have constantly increased since 1992, he said the DLPC’s distribution rate of P.7725 per kwH has remained in the past 12 years.

DLPC applied for an increase of P.24 per kwH on Dec. 26, 2001, but it was just granted a provisional authority to hike its rate by only up to P.1927 per kwH.

Aboitiz said the DLPC has nearly 215,000 consumers, of which more than 85 percent are residential, 1.67 percent industrial, and the rest commercial and other users.

He said the DLPC derives bulk of its income from industrial users.

The city’s power consumption grew by at least seven percent in 2003.