The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) issued an order directing all distribution utilities (DUs) in the Luzon and Visayas Grids to delay charging their consumers the generation charge based on the preliminary statement (PS) and wait until the final statement (FS) is released by the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) to all market participants.
ERC said this will ensure DUs’ billings to their consumers will reflect the accurate values corresponding to Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) purchases.
The regulatory body said since market operations were suspended for the Luzon and Visayas Grids on various dates last May, an administered price (AP) and in certain instances, secondary price caps (SPC) were applied.
“The commission simulated the impact of the AP and SPC application and noted that the PS is still subject to final adjustment. The commission projects that the FS will result in significantly lower WESM charges compared to those indicated in the PS,” the ERC said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said it will comply with the ERC order.
“Meralco will comply with this directive and will wait for IEMOP’s adjusted billing before computing the final rates for June and issuing the bills to our customers,” said Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco spokesperson and vice president for corporate communications, in a separate statement.
“With this, we also advise our customers to expect a slight delay in the delivery of their bills. We would like to give the assurance that these efforts are meant to mitigate the impact of the expected rate increase to all our customers,” Zaldarriaga said.
Meralco said to cushion the impact of the rate increase to customers, it initiated coordination with its suppliers to defer portion of their generation costs.
Zaldarriaga said deferred costs are proposed to be collected on a staggered basis for a period of three months or from June to August and that the ERC had no objections on the proposed mitigating measure.
Earlier, Meralco warned that this month’s power rates in its franchise area is in an upward trajectory due to higher pass-through charges.
The company said among charges that are expected to go up include the higher transmission charge following the partial lifting of reserve market settlement as ordered by the ERC, the increase in feed-in tariff allowance as well as the anticipated increase in WESM charges.
