January 8, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved the implementation of energy projects worth P101 billion last year, aimed at improving electric service for nearly 200,000 customers nationwide.
In a recent press briefing, ERC chairperson and CEO Monalisa Dimalanta said the agency issued decisions to 37 capital expenditure (capex) projects filed by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), distribution utilities (DUs) and electric cooperatives.
Of these projects, Dimalanta noted 13 were from the NGCP, while 20 came from DUs.
Similarly, the commission also promulgated 19 capex projects last year, with 12 filed by the NGCP and three by DUs.
“All in all, these projects amounted to P101 billion in investments required from NGCP and the DUs so that they can benefit more than 185,000 customers in the entire grid,” Dimalanta said.
As the sole transmission operator, the NGCP undertakes capex projects designed to improve the country’s electrical backbone, ensuring the reliability, stability and efficiency of the power grid.
Electric cooperatives and DUs, meanwhile, invest in projects that strengthen the resiliency of their distribution network to provide uninterrupted and reliable electric service to their customers.
Furthermore, the ERC also approved 11 power supply agreements (PSAs), 31 ancillary services procurement agreements and 15 point-to-point connection applications, as well as resolved 1,181 consumer complaints.
Despite the approval of these applications, the ERC remains under increasing pressure to address its backlog of over 3,000 cases as of the end of 2024.
Dimalanta said ERC’s pending cases consist of 286 capex projects, 690 consumer complaints, 398 applications for over and under recoveries, 563 PSAs and 200 rate adjustments.
She, however, clarified that this backlog was not something that happened overnight, with some cases dating back as far as 2017.
Moving forward, Dimalanta has reaffirmed the ERC’s commitment to prioritizing the completion of NGCP’s fourth regulatory period reset as well as Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) 5RP and lapsed period refund this year.
The rate-reset process sets the rules and parameters for the investment, operations and pricing mechanisms for highly regulated entities like NGCP and Meralco to determine how much should be charged to consumers.
For NGCP’s 4RP, the ERC proposed that the grid operator be allowed to recover only P310 billion out of the P552 billion it claimed to have spent for the period covering 2016 to 2022.
Meralco, on the other hand, has estimated a refund of around P16 billion to consumers once the ERC resolves its 5RP.
Late last month, the ERC resolved to adjust Meralco’s 5RP to July 2025-June 2029 from the previously approved January 2025-December 2028.
The power distributor’s lapsed period has also been revised to July 2022-June 2025 instead of the previously set January 2022-December 2024.
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