MANILA, Philippines — Transmission charges have been going down since 2010, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines said in infographics released in February and January.
From a high of P0.76 per kilowatt-hour in 2010, the power grid company said the transmission charge in 2019 was just P0.51 per kilowatt-hour.
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In April, the Energy Regulatory Commission granted the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines an interim relief to implement an Interim Maximum Annual Revenue (iMAR) for this year amounting to P47.051 billion. The iMAR is the cap that NGCP is allowed to earn from its transmission operations.
This means the existing transmission charge will be reduced by P0.0413 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) from the P0.5114 per kWh in 2019 to P0.4701 per kWh in 2020, The STAR reported last month.
"The lowering of the transmission rate is again one of the efforts of the commission to provide relief to all the electricity consumers, especially those that are economically disadvantaged who lost their jobs and earnings due to the implementation of the Enhanced Community Quarantine," the ERC chief said then.
In infographics posted in January and February, NGCP said that consumers only paid "about P0.04 for every peso spent on electricity" in August 2019, based on the electricity bill "of a residential customer with 630kWh consumption of the largest [Distribution Utility] in the Philippines."
Distribution utilities are companies that provide distribution services and end-user connections within their franchise area.
According to the NGCP infographic, the distribution charge is around 32.06% of each peso spent on electricity.
The bulk of what consumers pay — 46% for every peso spent — is the generation charge for companies that operate and maintain power plants.