PEMC asked to return ‘16, ‘17 overcharges

By Alena Mae S. Flores – July 10, 2020 at 09:20 pm
from manilastandard.net

The Energy Regulatory Commission ordered Philippine Electricity Market Corp. to refund over-collection in the market transaction fee in 2016 and 2017.

“We urge the PEMC to strictly observe the general guidelines that we have indicated in our decision for its future market transaction fee applications so that the consuming public, who will eventually bear the costs of the market transaction fee, will not be unnecessarily burdened,” ERC chairperson Agnes Devanadera said in a statement.

“As we have always instructed, stakeholders should be prudent in incurring costs, and we encourage them to be sensitive and to show empathy to the consumers who are mostly struggling at these difficult times due to the worsening pandemic,” she said.

Devanadera said the commission calculated the over-collection by getting the variance between the MTF collected in 2016 and 2017, and the ERC-approved budget of PEMC in the same period.

“The resulting variance is the amount to be refunded which shall be apportioned among all the Luzon and Visayas participants,” she said.