Published March 4, 2020, 10:00 PM By MYRNA M.
VELASCO
The Energy Regulatory Commission
(ERC) has extended final approval to the ₱5.39 per kilowatt hour (kwh)
electricity rate that project developer-firm Solar Philippines has tendered in
its 20-year power supply agreement (PSA) with Manila Electric Company.
The regulatory body’s final nod on
the pass-on rate of the solar facility is a follow-through to the provisional
approval it rendered last year on the same application. The PSA between Meralco
and Solar Philippines was signed in 2016.
In its decision, the
ERC stipulated that the approved rate of ₱5.39 per kWh is subject to 2.0
percent annual escalation as prescribed in the power supply deal.
Under the PSA, it was
prescribed that Solar Philippines will supply 25 megawatts of the capacity
off-take to Meralco from its first site in Tanuan; and then the other 25MW from
its second site in Naic, Cavite.
There is also an option
provision under the contract that seller-firm Solar Philippines may source
capacity from other plant-locations within the stretch of their 20-year
contract.
The 50MW offtake from
the Solar Philippines Tanauan Corporation had been among the first contracts
offered by the Leviste-founded firm to the country’s biggest power utility.
“The PSA was executed
in support of renewable energy and the rate approved by the ERC is
significantly lower than the prevailing feed-in-tariff rates,” Meralco said.
The second wave FIT rate for solar had been pegged at ₱8.69 per kwh; while the
first one was at ₱9.68 per kWh.
In
the past two to three years, Solar Philippines President Leandro Leviste also
joined the utility firm’s biddings and had been dangling cheaper-cost solar
tenders at the rates of ₱2.34 to ₱2.99 per kwh.
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