Kuala Lumpur — State-run National Power Corporation (Napocor) is seeking additional funding through a loan by next year to bolster its power supply and prevent potential outages.
On the sidelines of Enlit Asia 2024, Napocor President Fernando Roxas said that they are exploring a loan of around P11 billion to purchase diesel fuel for supplying power to remote off-grid areas.
“By 2025, we need P11.5 billion to be approved, otherwise each billion of deficit would mean no power for about two hours, we won’t be able to buy any fuel,” he told reporters.
Aside from the loan, Napocor may need to hike power rates in off-grid areas if the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approves.
“If the ERC won’t allow us to collect, we have no choice,” he said. “We might need to curtail [operations] and that’s bad in an election year.”
The Napoco chief added that he has sent a memorandum to the Department of Energy (DOE) regarding the corporation’s concern about funding. This concern stemmed from Napocor’s previous power rate hike request, which was filed last January.
“If we don’t get approval, we will have no more money to pay by March 2025, and we will start cutting operations,” he emphasized.
Roxas worried that the ERC approval may be a challenge and might take a while to get a go signal on increased power rate collection.