CONSUMERS in remote areas serviced by the National Power Corp.-Small Power Utilities Group (Napocor-Spug) should expect their power bills to increase by P1.43 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) beginning next month.

Napocor attributed the increase to the approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) of its fourth-to- sixth generation-rate adjustment mechanism (GRAM) and incremental currency exchange-rate adjustment (Icera) amounting to P4.1 billion.

The ERC allowed Napocor to collect from its customers P3.6 billion and P508 million under the GRAM and Icera, respectively, which translate to P1.2532/kWh for the GRAM and P0.1750/kWh for the Icera.

The ERC provisionally approved the same amount of P4.1 billion, which is being collected through the universal charge effective August 2011 billing cycle.

The approval pertains to the incremental fuel cost and incremental foreign-exchange payments for 2006 to 2009; it is meant to recover an expense spent long time ago.

Napocor said the total approved amount was P8.2 billion, which is 70 percent of the total applied amount of P11.9 billion. --Paul Anthony Isla