By Myrna Velasco
September 9, 2013 (updated)
For amounts it double-charged electricity consumers via line loss rentals, the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) is intent on exhausting all last-ditch legal remedies purportedly to escape P5.176 billion worth of pay-back to the customers of Manila Electric Company.
This developed as PSALM president Emmanuel R. Ledesma Jr. stressed that the decision of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is not yet final.
“We still have legal remedies under the law to enforce faithful implementation of the ERC’s 2010 decision,” Ledesma pointed out.
A recent ruling of the ERC already junked the motions for reconsideration lodged by PSALM and NPC (National Power Corporation) on the refund case.
As early as March this year, NPC or its transferee-company PSALM had been directed “to immediately implement the refund of P73,944,958.55 until such time that the total amount of P5,176,147,098.73 is fully refunded to Meralco.”
In the compliance-petition of Meralco docketed August 29, the power utility company re-affirmed that “based on the invoices issued by NPC to Meralco using a straight discount of 2.98% line loss factor on the NPC-time of use amount, the computed double recovery on line loss” is P5.176 billion for the period from November 2006 to August 2012.
The power industry regulator established that there had been “double charging” done against Meralco customers; and the amount already piled up to roughly P10 billion as of August last year.
A modified ruling of the ERC last July has passed on significant portion of P4.663 billion of the estimated total refund amounts to successor-generation companies (SGCs) or the buyers of the power plants privatized by PSALM.
However, the private sector successor-companies are contesting their inclusion into the “dispute resolution” or for being held liable to the refund amounts, inferring that they were not parties to the transition supply contract (TSC) between NPC and Meralco – the power supply covenant which had been the cause of the line loss over-recoveries.
In Meralco’s latest regulatory filing, it updated the refund amount being claimed from SGCs to P5.421 billion, higher by roughly P758.214 million from the last ERC ruling.
The utility firm has correspondingly proposed that it intends to refund its customers “the aforementioned line loss amounts, as and when the same are received from the SGCs.”
Its proposed pay-back scheme is “by way of automatic deduction of the amount of refund to the computed monthly generation rate.” source
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