‘Delayed approvals affect NGCP projects’

MANILA, Philippines — The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) is hoping that the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) will promptly resolve its rate application, noting that the delay continues to affect its projects.

Following the inauguration of the P20.9-billion Mariveles-Hermosa-San Jose (MHSJ) project last Friday, NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza told reporters that the absence of such approvals would negatively impact its succeeding projects.

“We have faith that the ERC will come out with the decision soon and with (a) reasonable recovery for NGCP’s investments. This is already a bit delayed,” she said.

The NGCP last year sought approval of its maximum annual revenue for the fifth regulatory period (5RP) covering the years 2021 to 2025, the filing of which had run in parallel to the ERC’s review of the grid operator’s 4RP.

“Our last regulatory approval was for the period ending in 2015, so the (4RP) that should have started in 2016 had concluded. We are already in the middle of the (5RP),” Alabanza noted.

The rate reset process sets the rules and parameters for the investment, operations and pricing mechanisms of the NGCP for a five-year period.

“The NGCP has been waiting for quite a while, but we are still hopeful that it will be resolved and that the outcome will be fair and encouraging for investors,” the NGCP official said.

The grid operator was said to have included in its 4RP and 5RP reset applications the unrecovered amounts it invested in its transmission projects.

Apart from the 500-kilovolt (kV) MHSJ transmission project, the NGCP has also completed the P52-billion Mindanao-Visayas interconnection project and the P67-billion Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) project over the past 12 months.

For the MHSJ and the CNP projects alone, the NGCP spent P87.9 billion but has so far recovered only less than one percent of the project costs, or P201.78 million.