PHILIPPINE Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) has assured Visayas customers that it will suspend the collection of congestion fees arising from the outage at a high-voltage submarine cable linking Cebu and Negros which earlier took place in June.
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) previously ordered PEMC, which governs the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM), to halt the collection of congestion charges and other related fees to curb the “significant” increases in power rates beginning June.
The commission also required PEMC to refund congestion and other fees collected from June to August within “a period equivalent to the number of months covered by the subject collections.”
“We recognize the financial burden that the Visayas electric power consumers may bear attributable to the congestion caused by the damaged submarine cable,” PEMC President Leonido J. Pulido III said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.
The adjustments in the WESM billing and settlements will be reflected in the June 2021 billing.
“PEMC, in coordination with the IEMOP (Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines), is currently fleshing out the details of the amounts and the manner of refund to the affected customers, as well as the recommendations to be submitted to the ERC on the pricing and settlement solution that may be applied during the repair period,” he added.
Once finalized, the proposed solution will be incorporated in the WESM rules.
Earlier this month, PEMC and the IEMOP submitted information to the ERC confirming the commission’s review of the “unusual results” of the July and August billing periods, which showed high line rental charges in the Negros and Panay regions, following the transmission line’s outage.
In the middle of June, dredging activities along the Bio-os River in Negros Oriental held by the Department of Public Works and Highways damaged the 138-kiloVolt Cebu Negros Line 1.
Repair activities on the transmission line are expected to last up to 26 months, according to PEMC. — Angelica Y. Yang