Meralco backs use of Malampaya funds

By Alena Mae S. Flores – March 27, 2018 at 07:00 pm
from manilastandard.net

Manila Electric Co., the biggest retailer of electricity, is backing the government’s plan to use the Malampaya funds to spare end-users from higher rates.

Meralco vice president and head of utility economics Lawrence Fernandez said the company fully supported the initiative at the House of Representatives to temper the rates from the universal charge and feed-in tariff.

Both the universal charge and feed-in tariff are charged to consumers under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 and the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, respectively.

Fernandez, in a letter to Lord Allan Velasco, chairman of the House Committee on Energy, cited pending petitions before the Energy Regulatory Commission to recover the stranded contract cost and stranded debt of National Power Corp. amounting to P71 billion.

He said consumers nationwide would pay an additional P0.08 per kilowatt-hour in their electricity bill if the existing Napocor stranded debts component in the universal charge is collected over a nine-year period.