Egay Uy ROTATIONAL blackouts are here again? I recently learned that Cepalco’s expandable 100-megawatt or so power plant in Balingasag will be operational by the early months of 2017, and its almost 10 megawatts of photovoltaic power from the Kirahon plateau in Villanueva will also be on line any time soon. With these power sources, and with the existing embedded power generation of Cepalco’s affiliate generating companies, Cagayan de Oro and its entire franchise area will no longer be dependent on the dominant suppliers of power and wires, the Psalm-Napocor and NGCP, hence rotational blackouts will greatly be diminished or even totally eliminated. Given these however, the resulting power rates will have to be closely looked into also.  While bulk power users may prefer to have available power supply even at higher costs than brownouts, the residential and small commercial power consumers whose usage may comprise about thirty percent of the total power sales of Cepalco may have a different point of view. But then again, let’s just hope the Energy Regulatory Commission, the guardian of the interests of both the providers and the consuming public, will do its job of balancing the interests of everybody. In Cagayan de Oro, the Konsumanteng Kagay-anon Inc. is there to provide the watch on behalf of consumers but resources of this group may prevent it from fully providing the brains, eyes and ears for the consuming public. While I was still in the private sector, I came up with a proposal that will ensure the active participation of the consumers in matters that affect them, i.e., rate cases, revision of rules of service, consultation by the ERC on matters affecting service, and the like.  Of course, that idea did not take off the drawing board. Since the consumers cannot represent themselves individually, it is best that they are represented by an organization that will take the cudgels for them.  Never mind the bulk power users because they have been organized a long time ago and have made representations with the power firm on matters affecting service. But how about the residential and small commercial consumers?  The proposal is simply for the power firm to allocate a certain percentage of its rate, say one-fourth of one percent, and place this in a trust fund to be drawn by the consumers group or groups, subject to certain rules that the ERC may have to promulgate in consultation with stakeholders.  The sole purpose of this trust fund would be to ensure the active participation of the consumers on matter affecting them. And this amount should not be recovered from the consumers.  As most of us already know, there is a provision in the rates of the power providers that the consumers pay, which is used to “penalize” power providers if they failed to provide service in accordance with committed standards in the form of “refunds” to affected consumers. The catch is, if the power provider meets the standards, it gets to keep the unspent fund which consumers have paid anyway as part of the power rates.  This could also be the source of the “consumers fund.” How about it, Konsumanteng Kagay-anon Inc.?