By Lenie Lectura - February 3, 2020
THE Power Sector Assets and
Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corp. will no longer collect from consumers P0.0543
per kilowatt-hour (kWh) Universal Charge for Stranded Contract Costs (UC-SCC)
starting this month.
“This is a relief to power consumers
all over the country as they are no longer going to be charged the UC-SCC,” the
state firm said in a recent announcement.
PSALM has started advising
electricity distribution and collecting utilities to terminate the
implementation of the UC-SCC.
In the decision of the Energy
Regulatory Commission (ERC) dated April 10, 2019, in Case 2015-139-RC, PSALM
was permitted to recover P5,117,060,647.80 through the aforementioned UC-SCC.
Garcia, in a text message, explained
that PSALM’s authority to collect the 5.43 centavos per kWh is hinged on fully
recovering the amount of P5,117,060,647.80.
“Based on our calculations, once we
are able to collect the US-SCC included in the January billings, then we will
be able to recover already the said P5,117,060,647.80, and so we need to
cease collection already,” said PSALM President Irene Besido-Garcia in a text
message when sought for further comment.
She said this is consistent with the
ERC decision that had approved its particular UC-SC. “Thus, last Friday, we
instructed the collecting entities to stop including the UC-SCC of 5.43 cents
per kWh starting the February billings,” she added.
The Electric Power Industry Reform
Act defines UC-SCC as the excess of the contracted cost of electricity
under eligible contracts over the actual selling price of the contracted
energy.
The UC-SCC charges were intended to
pay the remaining financial obligations that the government incurred due to the
construction of new power plants to alleviate the power shortages in the 1990s
and early 2000.
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