The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said ACEN Corp. and the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) have officially filed a motion for price adjustment in their 310 megawatts (MW) baseload and mid-merit power supply agreements (PSAs).
Monalisa Dimalanta, ERC chair, said the request was filed last March 5.
Earlier, Meralco said ACEN wants to apply change in circumstances (CIC) claims for the PSAs, following an increase in the cost of coal fuel and will need to recover additional fees for power it supplied in 2022.
Based on Meralco’s validation, ACEN’s CIC claims should only be equivalent to P706.14 million that should be recovered and staggered in six months from consumers.
However, Meralco said ACEN originally wanted the amount to be around P2.56 billion based on its own computations.
“Meralco advised us that this is how they treated the other contracts. So, based on an equal treatment principle, we are supportive. We broke it down according to sources of supply for transparency. It is a quasi financial contract so you can interpret it various ways,” said Eric Francia, ACEN president and chief executive officer, in a separate inquiry.
Meralco wants to preserve the PSAs with ACEN, noting that the P706.14 million additional charge is still lower compared to prices they will get if a new procurement for 310 MW of electricity will be conducted today.
The claim would result to more than 4 centavos increase in the generation charge over a period of six months, Meralco previously said.
