Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- March 25, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The National
Power Corp. (Napocor) wants to recover nearly P1.6 billion from customers in
missionary areas for the operational costs incurred in the delivery of power to
off-grid areas in 2016.
Napocor filed a petition with the
Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to approve its 17th application of recovery
charges under generation rate adjustment mechanism (GRAM).
GRAM seeks to recover deferred fuel
costs and power purchased costs incurred in providing power in Napocor-Small
Power Utilities Group (SPUG) areas.
In its GRAM application, Napocor is
seeking to recover P1.58 billion of deferred fuel costs it incurred from
January to December 2016.
To recover this amount, it proposed
to impose additional charges of P1.0343 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) for off-grid
customers in Luzon, P0.8009 per kwh for those in Visayas and P0.9862 per kwh
for those in Mindanao for two years.
“The proposed deferred accounting
adjustment will reflect the recent costs authorized under the GRAM
rules/mechanism and Napocor would increase the revenue commensurate with its
cost and ultimately reduce the burden of the UCME on all electricity
end-users,” Napocor said.
The UCME, or the universal charge
for missionary electrification, is collected from end-users which will be used
for the electrification of remote communities or areas not connected to the
main transmission grid.
Under the Electric Power Industry
Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001, Napocor is mandated to provide power generation and
its associated power delivery systems in areas that are not connected to the
transmission system, which include remote villages in Mindanao, Palawan and
Mindoro.
This is being done through Napocor-SPUG,
which incurs additional operating costs as a result of the fluctuation of fuel
prices used in power generation. It currently has 275 SPUG plants.
This year, the state-run firm is
acquiring 124 generator sets (gensets) worth as much as P1.3 billion to improve
power supply in off-grid islands.
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