The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is seriously weighing the resumption of collection of the P0.0364 per kilowatt hour (kWh) feed-in-tariff allowance (FIT-All) in the electric bills of all consumers, amid dwindling subsidy fund for renewable energy (RE) capacities.
According to ERC Chairperson Monalisa C. Dimalanta, the regulatory body has been reviewing the submissions of fund-administrator National Transmission Corporation (TransCo) on the remaining balance of the FIT-All fund.
FIT-All is a line item in the electric bill which is being passed on to all ratepayers; and the collections are paid correspondingly to the qualified renewable energy (RE) developers.
For now, the FIT-All just covered by the FIT-incentivized RE projects, but starting next year, even capacities contracted via the Green Energy Auction (GEA) program will already be included in the calculation of the fund.
“I’m having it studied, we’re monitoring the submissions of TransCo and we’ve been seeing that the fund is declining,” she said.
The initial three-month suspension of the FIT-All collection was ordered by the ERC starting December billing last year until February 2022 to help ease consumers’ financial burden during the Christmas holidays. The suspension was extended for six months from March billing until August this year.
Dimalanta, nevertheless, hinted that August may already be the last billing cycle that the FIT-All charge will be suspended to prevent fund depletion.
“Now that WESM (Wholesale Electricity Spot Market) prices are declining, then the fund is being used up,” she stressed. Essentially, the calculation of FIT-All has correlation with the fluctuation of prices in the spot market.
The ERC chief emphasized they will have to evaluate as to how long the fund could last to serve as basis of their decision to lift the suspension or not.
The FIT system has been institutionalized as incentive mechanism to entice renewable energy investors in the country – and the initial projects covered were those which came on-line from 2014 to 2016.
Onward, the perks being granted to RE developers who are joining the capacity tendering of the government are 20-year power supply agreements (PSAs) – and the payments for these contracts shall also be fetched from the FIT-All collection from consumers.