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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Consumer group backs Meralco’s supply contracts

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Laban Konsyumer Inc. urged the Energy Regulatory Commission to act on the pending petition of electricity retailer Manila Electric Co. to implement six agreements to supply a combined capacity of 1,700 megawatts.

LKI submitted its comments on the petitions of Meralco for the approval of power supply agreements with Phinma Energy Corp., South Premiere Power Corp., First Gen Hydro Power Corp. and San Miguel Energy Corp. on December 2.

LKI president Vic Dimagiba said Meralco needed the 1,700 MW of power to continuously supply electricity in its franchise area before the end of 2019 and thereafter.

“We have still been experiencing yellow and red alerts in November, which is a telltale sign that we need to secure adequate power capacity to meet the growing demand of the grid, especially with so many power plants going on outage even in the Ber-months. The need for additional electricity is of utmost urgency and importance to our economy,” Dimagiba said.

The Power for People Coalition also filed a petition for intervention at the ERC, questioning the results of Meralco’s CSP.

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P4P said the bidding outcome was worrying for Filipino consumers and climate-vulnerable Philippines.

“We are pleased that after over two years of Meralco’s insistent efforts to evade biddings for their power supply agreements, the Competitive Selection Process finally took place,” said Gerry Arances, convenor of the Power for People Coalition.

“We find it alarming, however, that Meralco is still so set on ensuring that power consumers remain tied to paying for dirty energy in the coming decade while also suffering the impacts of destructive power generation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Dimagiba said the total savings from all the petitions amounting to P0.4008 per kilowatt hour should be passed on to the consumers immediately.

“If the regulator acts on these PSAs as soon as possible, this will mean that consumers will not be burdened by high power rates, which have been brought about by power plant outages and high power generation costs. The more supply of power our country has, the laws of supply and demand show that prices and costs will go down,” Dimagiba said.

He called on the ERC to study the possible cost implications of the PSAs.

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