Ancillary costs fuel rate hike

Electricity consumers paid higher transmission charges this month as rates rose by over 11 percent, mainly due to higher Ancillary Service (AS) costs, according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

NGCP Head of Revenue Management Julius Ryan Datinggaling said during a press conference on Tuesday that AS charges climbed by 16.05 percent to P0.8094 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the March 2025 billing period, up from P0.6975 in February. These charges were reflected in April bills.

The increase includes the third tranche of a deferred recovery for 70 percent of AS costs from March 2024, which the Energy Regulatory Commission had earlier approved.

AS charges account for services that support grid stability, including those from the Reserve Market and bilateral contracts. NGCP emphasized that these are pass-through costs, meaning the company does not profit from them.

“For the April 2025 bills of end consumers, NGCP charges only 55 centavos per kWh for the delivery of its services. The bulk of transmission charges is for AS, which is remitted directly to AS providers,” Datinggaling said.

Transmission wheeling rates, which represent NGCP’s core power delivery service, also rose by 4.81 percent to P0.5505 per kWh in March, from P0.5252 in February.

Overall, transmission charges increased by 11.51 percent to P1.5240 per kWh in March, up from P1.3668 in the previous month.

The increase in transmission charges contributed to the P0.72 per kWh hike announced by the Manila Electric Co. earlier this week, which brought the total electricity rate to P13.01 per kWh in April, up from P12.29 in March.

The adjustment was primarily driven by a P0.73 per kWh spike in the generation charge due to higher prices from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.