Electricity bills going up next month

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino consumers should brace themselves for higher electricity bills next month due to additional ancillary services (AS) costs to be remitted to power generators.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said it would bill distribution utilities (DUs) like Manila Electric Co. and electric cooperatives more than 10 centavos per kilowatt-hour as a result of the partial lifting of suspension on the payments of transactions in the reserve market.

Earlier this week, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) allowed power generators to recover 30 percent of the transactions made in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM)’s reserve market during the March billing month.

The regulator estimated the partial payments to amount to P1.723 billion.

The additional cost that would be passed on to consumers would depend on the DUs’ final computations, the NGCP emphasized.

The additional AS costs would be reflected in consumers’ May billing period, which would be issued next month.

“We do not bill consumers. The DUs will still translate [the amount that we will bill them],” NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza said in a press briefing yesterday.

NGCP noted that AS are pass-through charges and are remitted directly to power generation companies.

The ERC earlier explained that the partial lifting of the suspension on settlement amounts in the WESM’s reserve market was ”to ensure continuous operations of power generators providing reserves” in the power system.

Moreover, Luzon could suffer more frequent electricity supply woes in the future as two sites under the NGCP’s Tuy-Dasmariñas 23-/500-kilovolt (kV) transmission line project have been ordered to be relocated by the Dasmariñas Regional Trial Court.

With the decision in place, the NGCP said it would incur additional costs with the relocation of the two sites, as they would have to redo everything from scratch — from feasibility study of the areas to the manufacturing of new tower parts and construction.

The value of the additional costs is still being evaluated by the NGCP.

The Tuy-Dasmariñas 230kV transmission line project has an approved cost of P3.05 billion while the Tuy 500kV substation project stage 1 is estimated to be worth P8.454 billion.

The NGCP said the estimated delay in the completion of the project would be at least 27 months, 12 months of which will be dedicated for the right-of-way acquisition and the remaining 15 months for the construction of the project.

The NGCP earlier targeted to complete the project by the end of the year.

With the absence of the additional supply, Luzon might be placed under continued yellow and red alerts in succeeding months and even years until the project is completed, NGCP warned.

“Incoming power plants, which will add urgently needed power supply, will become ‘stranded’ as they will be incapable of supplying power to the consumers,” it said.

The NGCP places a grid under yellow and red alerts if the available power supply is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s requirement.

The NGCP said it would appeal the court ruling before the appellate court as it maintained that relocation of public infrastructure under expropriation is beyond the powers of an expropriation court.