RE FIT-All added to electric bills starting January
from Manila Bulletin by Myrna Velasco, November 4, 2014
Filipino consumers will soon see an additional line item in their electric bills to be labeled as feed-in-tariff allowance (FIT-All) pegged at P0.0406 per kilowatt- hour (kwh).
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) indicated that the FIT-All pass-on is expected to kick off in the January billing – which is also the timeline when most of the renewable energy (RE) projects will kick off with their commercial operations.
More than a regulatory underpinning for an emerging technology for the energy sector, the approval of the FIT-All rate is seen by the ERC as something that shall spur additional investments in the RE domain.
According to ERC Chairperson Zenaida G. Cruz-Ducut, “the setting of the FIT Allowance signals the start of the implementation of the FIT system.”
She added that with such incentive in place, “there will be more and more renewable energy companies investing and thus develop the renewable energy industry.”
Ducut’s appeal to stakeholders shall be “to view with optimism these changes brought about by the development, utilization and commercialization of RE technologies so that we can have a clean and energized future.”
The currently approved FIT-All will be enforced for the whole year of 2015. The next phases of pass-on will have to go through fresh round of applications and regulatory approvals.
The FIT-All shall be collected by distribution utilities and other duly authorized players which will then remit collections to FIT administrator National Transmission Corporation and shall in turn correspondingly make payments to RE dvelopers.
The ERC explained that the provisional authority given to TransCo “will allow it to perform its duties as a fund administrator and pay the RE developers on time their entitled FIT rate, thereby, allowing continued production of RE electricity.”
The FIT-ALL, it added, “is a uniform charge akin to the universal charge that is imposed on all on-grid electricity consumers who are supplied with electricity through the distribution or transmission network.”
