Business World Online
Posted on October 23, 2014 10:28:00 PM
A DECISION on the National Transmission Corp.’s (TransCo) petition to start implementing a P0.04057 per kilowatt-hour (/kWh) renewable energy (RE) charge under the feed-in tariff (FIT) system will be released soon, an official said yesterday.
Under the FIT, RE developers will dispatch the capacity of their projects to the grid at a premium rate for a period of 20 years.
The FIT rate -- which will be paid to the RE developers -- will be divided to all electricity consumers as FIT-Allowance (FIT-All).
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is now working on a decision following the conclusion of public hearings on TransCo’s plea filed last July, according to Executive Director Francis Saturnino C. Juan. He said that the regulatory body is finalizing the order on TransCo’s petition for an issuance of provisional authority to collect the FIT-All.
“The effective date of the FIT-All collection will be in that order. At this time, I could not yet say when the collections will start. We have to wait for the official order,” Mr. Juan said on the sidelines of a budget hearing in Pasay City.
He said it is possible to have the order released by the end of this month or early November.
“I could not say when exactly but there were deliberations and discussions already,” Mr. Juan told reporters.
“It’s just a matter of finalizing the order, which will contain what the commission has decided.”
The official further explained that before starting FIT-All collections, the collecting agents such as distribution utilities (DUs) should prepare the billing process.
“We would need to take into account that this would be the first time that FIT-All will be implemented which will require DUs to modify their billing system to be able to include another bill component,” Mr. Juan said.
He added that the FIT rate will appear as a separate line item on the consumer’s power bills.
In its petition last July, TransCo said the FIT-All was computed based on the approved FIT rate and forecast national sales of electricity.
The FIT rates -- approved by ERC in July 2012 -- provides the following rates for RE technologies: run-of-river hydro (P5.90/kWh), biomass (P6.63/kWh), wind (P8.53/kWh), and solar (P9.68/kWh). These were based on the installation allocations -- which limit the capacity of projects for each RE technology -- that were set by the Energy department.
The installations for RE technologies totaled 750 megawatts (MW). Currently, run-of-river hydro and biomass projects are allocated at 250 MW each, wind power at 200 MW, and solar power at 50 MW.
All customers who are connected to the grid will share the cost of the FIT through the uniform charge.
It will be the responsibility of the respective DUs (for the captive market) or the retail electricity suppliers (for the contestable market) to collect this charge.
Afterwards, the collections will be remitted to the FIT-All Fund that will be administered by TransCo. -- Claire-Ann Marie C. Feliciano source
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