ILOILO City – The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) directed the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) to explain the “very high” Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) line rental being charged to this city’s power distributor.
MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) president Roel Castro earlier sought guidance from ERC chairperson Agnes Devanadera about the July 2021 WESM bill issued by the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP). The bill covered the period from June 26, 2021 to July 25, 2021.
Castro pointed out the “numerous extreme price separations”.
MORE Power’s line rental payables during the billing month of July 2021 amounted to P66,156,307.84, which would translate to P1.5351 per kilowatt hour (/kWh) price hike for its residential consumers.
The price separations were attributable to the mishap in one of the 2x90MW circuits of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines’ (NGCP) submarine cable between Cebu and Negros, which limited the flow of power supply between the islands, said Castro.
On June 15, dredging and re-channeling activities of the Department of Public Works and Highways along Bio-os River in Barangay Jagna, Amlan, Negros Oriental damaged the submarine cable.
“Considering that the scheduling and pricing of real-time data, and the billing and settlement procedures are part of the market operation functions, the ERC hereby directs PEMC to provide, within three days from receipt hereof, its input on the inquiry of MORE with regard to the non-imposition of the Price Substitution Methodology (PSM) during the period where issues on the NGCP line were encountered,” Devanadera wrote PEMC president Leonido Pulido III.
PEMC was further directed to submit the following data:
* breakdown of the computation of the line rental payments of MORE for the billing month of July 2021 in comparison to the period prior to the submarine cable breakdown and the same period in 2019 and 2020;
* breakdown of the computation of the trading amount of MORE for the billing month of July 2021 in comparison to the period prior to the submarine cable breakdown and the same period in 2019 and 2020;
* final nodal prices of MORE for July 2019, 2020 and 2021; and
* breakdown and computation of its Ph17,999,364.20 NSS Allocation in comparison to its NSS allocation prior to the submarine cable breakdown and the same period in 2019 and 2020.
Castro earlier pointed that this extraordinary market condition might extend until next year pending the repair of the damaged submarine cable of the NGCP.
“In July 2021, MORE Power was able to achieve the lowest residential electricity rates because of the ERC-approved competitive TOU (Time-Of-Use) Rates for PSALM (Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.). Unfortunately, this effort of MORE is now being challenged by the line rental and congestion charges that were brought about by an incident over which MORE Power had no fault or participation,” Castro said.
He disclosed that this month, the generation charge of MORE is projected to increase by 76 percent after hitting a record low of P3.55 per kWh in July 2021.
“MORE Power is bleeding to pay IEMOP a line rental amount of P164.4 million, more than twice that of P66.15 million from last month,” Castro lamented.
He noted that this extreme price hike in WESM is projected to continue until December, pending complete repair of the NGCP’s damaged submarine cable.
This, he added, means another unbearable four months for the paying consumers just because of the “underwater mishap” of the DPWH’s operator.
“MORE Power would like to respectfully request the immediate attention of the Honorable Commission to urgently look into the burden caused by the damaged submarine cable as this will continuously rip the consumers by paying exorbitant electricity rates,” said Castro./PN
