By MYRNA M. VELASCO
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has finally issued a decision reducing to ₱0.0495 per kilowatt hour (kwh) the feed-in-tariff allowance (FIT-All) line item in the electric bills being paid for by Filipino consumers.
That will be a substantive reduction of ₱0.1731 per kwh from the prevailing FIT-All charge of ₱0.2226 per kwh, according to the regulatory body.
And if referenced on the original application of fund administrator National Transmission Corporation (TransCo) at ₱0.2471 per kwh, the total reduction decided upon by the ERC was at a scale of ₱0.1976 per kwh.
The new lower FIT-All charge shall be reflected in the bills of consumers “starting the immediately succeeding billing period following TransCo’s receipt of the decision,” according to ERC Chairperson Agnes T. Devanadera.
She stressed that “the 2019 FIT-All will result to a reduction in the existing FIT-All rate and will increase the consumers’ purchasing power.”
Devanadera further explained that “in computing the 2019 FIT-All rates, (the ERC) made use of the actual generation billed and the actual cost recovery rate from January to August 2019.”
The regulatory body also stipulated that “the 2019 FIT-All considered the FIT-eligible plants with certificate of compliance (FIT-COC) and the 2019 forecasted incoming run-of-river hydro and biomass plants.”
It further stressed that such was “in view of the extension by the Department of Energy (DOE) for the installation target for run-of-river hydro and biomass up to December 31, 2019, or its full subscription whatever comes first.”
In its filing, TransCo manifested an under-recovery of ₱122.7 million; but the ERC said, it opted to factor in “the actual over-recovery reflected in the books of TransCo as of October 7, 2019 amounting to ₱6.7 billion.”
The FIT-All is a subsidy charge collected from all consumers that will be used to incentivize the renewable energy (RE) installations that qualified into the FIT perks system instituted by the government.
“The FIT-All is a uniform charge in peso-per-kilowatt hour payable by all electricity users that is calculated annually,” the ERC has emphasized.
The entities serving as collecting agents are the distribution utilities, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) as well as the retail electricity suppliers (RES), which in turn will be remitting the collections to TransCo, being the fund administrator.