By Sheldeen Joy Talavera, Reporter
HIGHER ELECTRICITY BILLS loom as the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) lifted the suspension of the collection of feed-in tariff allowance (FIT-All) starting February.
In a statement, the ERC said that it has decided to lift the 13-month collection suspension due to the projected deficit in the FIT-All fund.
“As the Commission reevaluated the balance of the FIT-All fund as of Jan. 5, 2024, inclusive of the Cost Recovery Revenue (CRR) collections in November 2023, the ERC found that the projected FIT-All fund would be in deficit in the February 2024 customer monthly billing. In view of this, the Commission resolved to approve and adopt the lifting of the suspension and to resume the collection of the FIT-All charges,” it said.
The FIT-All is a P0.0364 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) charge reflected in the bills of electricity consumers that is collected from on-grid electricity customers to support the development and promotion of renewable energy.
Payments are remitted to the FIT-All fund established and administered by the National Transmission Corp., which keeps the funds with a government financial institution.
The fund goes towards paying renewable energy (RE) developers who have obtained fixed rates for electricity generated by their projects.
According to ERC Chairperson Monalisa C. Dimalanta, the FIT-All fund needs to pay around P2.2 billion a month to RE suppliers.
“The fund has about P2.98 billion remaining as of Jan. 5, 2024, so it needs to start building up amounts again to make sure the RE developers that supply in the next months can be paid for their supply,” she said in a Viber message.
The ERC had first suspended FIT-All collection for three months covering the billing period of December 2022 to February 2023 to ease the financial burden on consumers amid the rising costs of electricity in 2022.
The suspension of the FIT-All collection was extended twice last year.
Sought for comment, Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr., president of Minimal Government Thinkers, said that the resumption of FIT-All collection may lead to a slight increase in the cost of electricity, which may result in higher monthly power bills.
“This will raise the cost of electricity by 3.64 centavos/kWh, round off to four centavos/kWh starting February billing,” he said in a Viber message.
Meanwhile, Terry L. Ridon, a public investment analyst and convenor of think tank InfraWatch PH, said that the ERC should consider reviewing the tariff with the decreasing costs of renewables.
“The ERC should undertake a continuing review of the tariff to reflect the performance of RE providers and the current state of RE technology today, with its decreasing costs,” he said in a Viber message.
Manila Electric Co. has temporarily halted the collection of FIT-All to its consumers in the previous monthly electricity bills as directed by the ERC.
Households consuming 200 kWh may pay about P7.28 more, Mr. Oplas said, including value-added tax.