System operator seeks payback
‘To keep up the service, we need to maintain the business of transmission healthy. Investors like NGCP need to recover their costs for providing good service’
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Daily Tribune‘To keep up the service, we need to maintain the business of transmission healthy. Investors like NGCP need to recover their costs for providing good service’
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The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines has announced that the Mariveles-Hermosa-San Jose 500kV facility can now accommodate an additional 2,200 MW of supply from new power plants in Bataan and Zambales for the Luzon grid.
photograph courtesy of NGCP
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) wants to start recovering about P87.7 billion for the two power lines it recently completed to help sustain the business.
NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza said on Wednesday that the transmission operator appeals for the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to clear its application.
“To keep up the service, we need to maintain the business of transmission healthy. Investors like NGCP need to recover their costs for providing good service,” Alabanza said.
Alabanza also lamented the misconception that NGCP charges cost recoveries for unfinished projects.
More pass throughs
She, however, pointed out that the NGCP was only allowed to collect a total of P201.78 million for the development of the P20.94 billion Mariveles-Hermosa-San Jose 500 kiloVolt (kV) transmission line project in Bataan and the P67-billion Cebu-Negros-Panay backbone transmission project.
The Mariveles-Hermosa-San Jose 500kV line enables the accommodation of capacities from new power plants in Bataan and Zambales to the rest of the Luzon grid.
It is composed of 395 transmission towers, 275.6 circuit kilometers of transmission lines, two new substations, and 2,000 megavolt Amperes in substation capacity.
Meanwhile, the Cebu-Negros-Panay project has increased the transfer of power capacity from Panay to Negros to Cebu and vice versa.
Responding to the operator’s call, ERC chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said the agency may decide on NGCP’s fourth regulatory period rate reset by next month.
Dimalanta, however, was quick to add that some costs from NGCP’s completed projects will “traverse” to its fifth regulatory period rate reset, especially those that have only been completed after 2022.
NGCP’s fourth regulatory period is for years 2016 to 2020 while the fifth regulatory period is for the years 2021 to 2025.
ERC conducts a regulatory reset every five years to check if the allowed revenues of NGCP and its charges to customers remain valid and reflective of current costs.
During the reset, the ERC will scrutinize the expenditure items of the company and other parameters to make sure that only eligible and reasonable costs are being passed on to consumers.
ERC last held a transmission reset for NGCP covering the third regulatory period covering the years 2011 to 2015.
