NGCP: Transmission costs up in February
MANILA, Philippines — Transmission charges for the January period, which consumers will see in this month’s power bills, went up due to higher ancillary service costs.
In a briefing, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said the overall transmission charges inched up to P1.3504 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from the P1.2583 in the December 2024 billing period.
The slight increase in the rate was blamed on the upward adjustment observed with ancillary service charges, or the cost of electricity sourced from the reserve market and providers with bilateral contracts with the NGCP when supplies are thin.
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Tapping ancillary services is necessary to ensure continuous delivery of power, subsequently avoiding outages.
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The NGCP said ancillary service rates jumped 12 percent to 66 centavos per kWh against the previous 59 centavos. The firm said the rates for the period included the first wave of the collection of 70 percent of the ancillary service charge that was not billed by generators from early last year.
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To recall, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) gave the green light for power generators to recover a total of P3.05 billion, which represents the remaining 70 percent reserve trading amounts. The commission earlier suspended the collection of amounts in the reserve market following the surge in prices.
“NGCP does not earn from AS and did not benefit from the increase in prices. AS charges are pass-through, and generating companies benefitted from this increase. AS are support services used to balance and stabilize the grid during power supply-demand imbalance,” it said.
Meanwhile, transmission wheeling rates, or what the NGCP charges to consumers for delivering power, settled at 54 centavos per kWh from 53 centavos.
“Only 54 centavos of the overall transmission rate is charged by NGCP for the delivery of its services to power consumers. This month’s transmission charge is comprised mainly of as charges remitted directly to power generators providing ancillary services to the grid,” said NGCP.