By Lenie Lectura - May 14, 2017
The chairman of the Senate Committee
on Energy called the attention of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to the
delays in the resolution of feed-in-tariff (FiT) payments owed to
renewable-energy (RE) developers.
“These unwarranted delays in the ERC
approval is the reason why Transco [National Transmission Corp.] has not been
able to pay the RE developers. And because of these delays, we have to pay
consequential costs,” Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian said.
He was referring to the P6.6-billion
backlog in FiT rate payments owed by the government to RE developers for the
year 2016, including P230 million in interest payments alone.
Gatchalian linked the payment
backlog to the sluggish action of ERC commissioners on applications of Transco
to collect higher FiT-All rates aimed at augmenting its subsidy to eligible RE
developers and allowing it to pay its obligations.
“I hate to say it, but because of the delays
of the ERC, we will be paying P230 million in interest payments. That’s why I
am quite adamant in getting a definitive timetable [when the applications will
likely be approved] from you [ERC] because I know that the amount will grow
bigger. Every day it piles up,” Gatchalian said during a hearing of the Joint
Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) on the status and implantation of the
provisions of the Renewable Energy Act.
“In line with attracting investors
and promoting RE…we will never get serious investors if we don’t fulfill our
contractual obligations, and FiT-All is one of them,” he added.
In December 2015 Transco sought to
increase the FiT-All rate for 2016 to 12 centavos per kilowatt-hour. Before the
application can be approved, Transco filed another application in December
2016, this time asking to further hike the rate to 22 centavos per kWh.
ERC officials told members of the
JCPC that it is set to issue its final approval of the 2016 application on June
9. On the other hand, they are also set to convene the first jurisdictional and
expository meeting for the 2017 rate application on May 15, Monday, and its
approval by September 2017.
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