By Perfecto T. Raymundo
MANILA, Jan. 6 (PNA) — The Supreme Court (SC) was asked on Tuesday to stop the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) from implementing its order allowing the National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) to charge its clients with an additional Php0.04 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in their electric bills starting January 2015 to shoulder the cost of renewable energy (RE) under the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme.
The Php0.04 per kWh will eventually be passed on starting this January to all electricity consumers like the subscribers of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) customers in Metro Manila and the nearby provinces.
Named respondents in the petition are the ERC, Department of Energy (DOE), TransCo, National Renewable Energy Board (NREB), and Meralco.
In his petition, lawyer Remigio Michael Ancheta told the SC that the FIT rules and regulations insofar as they implement the FIT Allowance (FIT-ALL) of Php0.0406 per kWh and the ERC order dated Oct. 7, 2014 which granted TransCo’s application for a provisional FIT-All are unconstitutional.
With the ERC’s order, distribution utilities like Meralco are mandated to adopt the necessary modification in their billing and collection systems in order to enforce the Fit-ALL as a separate line item in the billings of consumers and remit the same in accordance with the FIT-All Guidelines.
The petition cited that a residential Meralco customer consuming 200 kWh a month should expect an additional charge of Php8.12 under the FIT system.
The FIT-All is a uniform charge similar to the universal charge that is imposed on all on-grid electricity consumers who are supplied with electricity through the distribution or transmission network.
It is essential to the implementation of the FIT system that was set up under Section 7 of Republic Act No. 9513, or the “Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (RE Law)”.
The funds generated by TransCo will enable it to exercise its duty as a fund administrator and pay the RE developers on time their entitled FIT rate, thereby allowing continued production of RE electricity.
The petition added that the FIT Rules and Guidelines erroneously provided an advance collection to pay the RE developers.
It argued that under the RE Law, the establishment of FIT System is for electricity produced from wind, solar, ocean, run-of-river hydropower and biomass.
The petition said that the ERC committed grave abuse of discretion when it issued the FIT Rules and FIT Guidelines that expanded the implementation of the RE Law.
With the abuse committed by the ERC, electricity consumers are now being compelled to pay in advance considering that the plants covered by the FIT program have yet to operate or have yet to be constructed.
“Otherwise stated, the public would be made to pay for electricity that has yet to be generated,” the petition said.
It said that based on TransCo’s 2015 forecast on national sales of 68.01 trillion kWh, the FIT-All fund would be Php 230.12 million a month or about Php2.7 billion this year.
“Unless this Honorable Court strikes down this unreasonable and oppressive attempt to collect from the public an amount that they can otherwise use for basic necessities, the consumers will be required to bear the burden by the start of the year 2015,” the petition said.
“The Department of Energy (DOE) and ERC chose means that are beyond what is necessary to achieve the purpose of the law to the prejudice of the public i.e., by mandating the advance collection of the portion of the payment to the FIT-eligible RE developers even before actual electrical energy is produced by them and transmitted to the grid,” it said. (PNA)