Revised contract may push bills higher
ACEN particularly wants to recover additional fees for power supplied to Meralco from January to December 2022
Daily TribuneACEN particularly wants to recover additional fees for power supplied to Meralco from January to December 2022
Consumers may have to bear higher power rates once regulators approve a joint petition by the Manila Electric Co., or Meralco, and ACEN Corp., to modify a provision of their power supply agreement, or PSA, due to a surge in coal fuel prices.
Meralco executive vice president and COO Ronnie Aperocho affirmed that the parties have jointly submitted their petition to the Energy Regulatory Commission, or ERC.
“It was jointly filed, and the claims amount was lower as initially proposed because that is a condition for joint filing,” Aparecho told reporters.
The Meralco and ACEN have existing PSA involving 110 megawatts, or MW, of mid-merit capacity and 200 MW of baseload capacity.
Meralco disclosed last week that ACEN filed for a so-called change in circumstances, or CIC, in its PSA due to a spike in coal fuel prices.
ACEN particularly wants to recover additional fees for power supplied to Meralco from January to December 2022.
Meralco first vice president and regulatory management head Jose Ronald Valles previously explained that a joint CIC filing is needed to protect the integrity of the power deal.
PSAs must be preserved
“We’re joining the filing to preserve the PSAs. Under the contract, if we don’t agree to file and seek the approval of the ERC for the claim, then they have a recourse to terminate the PSA, which is provided for under the contract,” Valles said.
“We don’t want them to exercise that right. We calculated that if they are terminated, it will be more costly as that means we will secure another contract from another supplier that is more expensive which we don’t want,” he added.
ACEN initially filed a claim of P329.66 million for the mid-merit PSA.
The amount was divided among the South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp., or SLTEC, plant (P87.76 million), the third-party generator (P84.27 million), and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, or WESM (P157.63 million).
In the case of the baseload PSA, claims totaled P2,23 billion.
The amount was allocated as follows: P618.38 million for the SLTEC plant, P561.27 million for the third-party generator, and P1.05 billion for WESM.
However, Meralco maintained that claims should only amount to P706.14 million and be recoverable on a staggered basis for six months.
The passed-on amount to consumers for six months will start at P0.0388 per kilowatt-hour, or kWh in the first month; P0.0413 per kWh in the second month, P0.0353 per kWh in the third, P0.0322 per kWh in the fourth month, P0.0320 per kWh in the fifth month, and P0.0355 per kWh in the last month.