THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is studying the possibility of ordering electric cooperatives and utilities not to disconnect consumers who are unable to pay their electricity bills this month.
ERC chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said this is to prevent households from having no electricity during some of the hottest weeks of the summer season.
According to Dimalanta, they have asked power utilities and cooperatives to defer the payment of bills. But if they do not comply, the commission may issue a directive to prohibit any disconnection at this point.
Electricity rates in many parts of the country have soared this month due to the series of yellow and red alerts that pushed up prices of electricity at the spot market.
While Meralco has announced a P0.46 per kilowatt hour (kwh) hike this month, other cooperatives in Western Visayas have implemented increases of over P3/kwh.
The Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives said electric coops will comply with any directive to halt disconnection, but added that the ERC must also ask generators or suppliers to refrain from billing cooperatives or at least stagger their billings.
Rate hike due to reserves
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has announced that the decision of the ERC to allow a 30 percent recovery of generators who participated in the reserve market will translate to a more than P0.10/kwh hike to distribution utilities and electric cooperatives.
In turn, electric cooperatives and distribution utilities will reflect this on the bill of consumers in the next due date in June.
While the NGCP cannot yet ascertain the exact impact on the consumers, Dimalanta said the rate impact on consumers to be around P0.20 to P0.50/kwh.
Stolen tower parts
The NGCP has also appealed to consumers to help them guard transmission towers after reports of pilferage and stealing of tower parts.
It said the theft incidents are alarming in the sense that the target this time is a relatively new facility in the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid.
It also reported that a court order delays the completion of the Tuy (Calaca)-Dasmariñas 230/500-kiloVolt (kV) Transmission Line and Substation Project.
The company said that the delay may lead to additional costs to be shouldered by power consumers, as well as potential power interruptions as these legal roadblocks hamper the entry of an additional 5,215.55 megawatts in proposed generation capacity near Calaca, Batangas.
NGCP filed expropriation cases against E. M. Ramos and Sons, Inc. and several other defendants who claim interest over the properties affected by 15 of the 135 towers to be constructed for the project. (ABS-CBN News)
