National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, the country’s private transmission operator, said utility customers pay just P0.04 for every peso spent on their monthly electricity bill.
NGCP, in an infographics, said based on the May 2020 electricity billing by distribution utility from the April 2020 transmission charge, the rate was only P0.04 for every peso spent on electricity, representing 3.93 percent of the total electricity for the month.
Transmission charge is the cost of delivering and balancing high-voltage electricity from the generators to the distribution utilities.
NGCP said that ancillary services charge only accounts only for 4.10 percent. NGCP collects the AS but remit them directly to the AS provider.
It said the transmission charge had been on a downtrend in recent years compared with the P0.69 kilowatt-hour charged by the National Transmission Corp.prior to the privatization of the transmission assets in 2009.
It said NGCP’s pass-on transmission charge went down to a record low of P0.51 per kWh as of 2019. Transmission charge is the cost of delivering and balancing high-voltage electricity from the generators to the distribution utilities.
Data showed an initial seesaw on the transmission tariff upon NGCP’s assumption until successive reductions came in recent years as NGCP brought it down further to P0.51 per kWh as of 2019.
NGCP is the private entity that won the 25-year contract to manage, operate, expand and improve the country’s power transmission system in a privatization exercise carried out by state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation in 2009.
It said that when NGCP assumed the management of the country’s transmission facilities in 2009, TransCo rate in 2008 was at P0.69 per kWh.
The NGCP infographics showed that the share of generation charge or the fraction paid to power plant owners and operators has the lion’s share of 44.03 percent; while distribution charge represents 33.49 percent; and others like government taxes take up the remaining 14.45 percent.
“Utility customers actually are paying only P0.04 on transmission charges for every peso spent on electricity,” NGCP said.