By Richmond Mercurio – January 19, 2024 | 12:00am
from The Philippine Star
MANILA, Philippines — Starting next month, electricity consumers will resume paying the feed-in tariff allowance (FIT-All) at a rate of P0.0364 per kilowatt-hour in their electric bills.
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said it resolved to lift the suspension on the collection of the FIT-All starting the billing month of February 2024.
This comes after more than a year of suspending its collection to provide relief to Filipino consumers.
The ERC said the suspension was decided upon due to the looming deficit in the projected 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 collections in November 2023, the ERC found that the projected FIT-All Fund would be in deficit in the February 2024 customer monthly billing,” the ERC said.
“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 uniform charge imposed on all on-grid electricity consumers, and is a component of the electricity bill, that ensures the development and promotion of renewable energy in the country.
The FIT-All collections are remitted to the FIT-All Fund established and administered by the National Transmission Corp., which keeps the fund in a government financial institution.
The ERC initially ordered the temporary suspension in the collection of the FIT-All from December 2022 to February 2023 to provide consumers relief in their electricity bills.
Given the healthy state of the FIT-All Fund and to alleviate the burden of Filipinos amid the rising costs of electricity, the ERC extended the temporary suspension of the FIT-All collection for a period of six months, or until August 2023.
The ERC last August extended anew the suspension of the FIT-All collection “until otherwise lifted by the commission.”
The implementation of the FIT-All rate at P0.0364 per kWh was approved by the ERC back in August 2022.