SEN. Ralph Recto wants the Senate to look into the power price hike petitions filed before the Energy Regulatory Commission, saying Congress should revisit the law that created the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.
Recto said the impending series of power rate hikes does not jibe with the spirit and intent of the EPIRA, whose goal was to ensure reliable, cheap and secure supply of electricity.

“If these petitions fall through, every power users — households and industries —would be bracing for multiple power rate whammies where the future electricity billing would display a jump of at least P5 for every kilowatt-hour used,” he said.

The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), National Power Corp (Napocor), Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and the National Grid Corp of the Philippines (NGCP) filed petitions for price increases..

PSALM is seeking an increase of P0.1059 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) for Luzon and P0.1157/kwh for Visayas and also an adjustment in the universal charge (UC) by P0.39 kwh to recover a portion of the debts of the Napocor, of which P0.03 per kWh will be collected over 15 years to pay for stranded debts while P0.36 per kwh over four years for stranded contract costs.

There’s also a separate pending petition from PSALM, the agency tasked under EPIRA to oversee the liquidation of Napocor’s assets to pay-off its debts and, in the process lower power rates, for the adjustment of Napocor’s base rate under the Generation Rate Adjustment Mechanism (GRAM) and Incremental Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (ICERA) where it seeks a hike of P4.72/kwh for Luzon, P4.26/kwh for Visayas and P3.17/kWh for Mindanao; GRAM recovers the cost of fuel and of electricity purchased from privately owned power plants while the ICERA is a mechanism to recover the state power generator’s foreign exchange fluctuation costs.

Meralco has increased its generation charge effective August 2011 to P0.08 per kilowatt-hour as a result of higher cost of power from the spot market and power producers. It also was allowed to impose another 3.06 centavos/kwh for its under-recoveries during the period of January 26 to
February 25 in 2010 amounting to P944 million.

The NGCP, meanwhile, proposed a rate increase of P0.82/kWh that will be staggered from October 2011 up to December 2015 in Luzon to recoup the P80.2 million used for the rehabilitation, repair and restoration of transmission line facilities damaged by typhoons Basyang and Juan in 2010.

Recto said the looming power rate shockers will further validate the country’s reputation as having the highest power rates not only in Asia but also in the whole world with electricity costing P11 per kwh.

He said an investigation would “energize the chamber with volts of ideas on whether EPIRA suffered a major tripping or a short circuit on its way to implementation.