The Energy Regulatory Commission committed to completing the rate reset for Manila Electric Co. and National Grid Corp. of the Philippines as part of its regulatory priorities in the first semester of 2025.
ERC chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said they expect to complete the 4th regulatory period rate reset of NGCP and the resolution of Meralco’s 5th RP and its expected refund.
“For this year, we divided our priorities into two: the first semester, because we that’s where we still have the two senior commissioners, and then for the second semester where we hope the new commissioners will be able to join us without too much of a gap between retirement and assumption in the office,” Dimalanta said.
ERC commissioners Catherine Maceda and Alexis Lumbatan are due for retirement this year.
“For the first semester, we hope to — not we hope but we will complete the reset for NGCP, for Meralco, and then we’ll start with other private DUs because the other DUs (distribution utilities) they have filings in the commission so we’ll also have resolve how to deal with that and then they will file new application for their own 5th RP,” she said.
She said the ERC is also hoping to resolve all the pending the universal charge for missionary electrification petitions of the National Power Corp.
“We’ll also, during this first half, finalized the resolution of all the ASPA [ancillary service procurement agreement] because they are nearing expiry,” Dimalanta said.
She said the agency is also looking at the full implementation of our retail competition and open access with aggressive campaign this year.
“Then we will issue an updated schedule of our fines and penalties. The amended Public Service Act allowed us to increase our penalties also. So we are aligning our schedule of fines and penalties within the parameters as permitted under the Public Service Act while we await if Congress will pursue the amendment of EPIRA [Electric Power Industry Reform Act] so that we can have a more updated set of fines and penalties,” she said.
Dimalanta said ERC is also updating reliability standards for DUs and generation firms.
“Then, the revision of the WESM [Wholesale Electricity Spot Market] secondary price cap and the amended Grid Code and Distribution Code,” she said.
