MERALCO, NAPOCOR to agree on TOU scheme
Monday, August 07, 2006
Manila Electric Co. (MERALCO) and National Power Corp. (NAPOCOR) expects to come up with a memorandum of agreement on the proposed customer choice program which they will submit to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) in two weeks.
Jesus Francisco, MERALCO president, told reporters that the company, the Philippines’ largest distribution utility, is in talks with state-owned NAPOCOR.
The program will allow MERALCO’s large industrial and commercial customers with at least a monthly power demand of one megawatt (MW) to directly buy power from NAPOCOR and avail of its time-of-use (TOU) scheme, a mechanism which allows firms to buy cheaper power at off-peak periods of the day.
Companies expect huge savings from NAPOCOR’s TOU rates instead of MERALCO’s rates, which are based on the power it buys from the state power firm and its independent private producers (IPPs).
Initial estimates showed that more than 400 companies with a monthly demand of at least one megawatt will benefit from the program. Even if they avail of NAPOCOR’s TOU rates, however, companies will have to pay MERALCO with the wheeling rates for using its distribution facilities.
Francisco said MERALCO and NAPOCOR recently met, with the Lopez family-led electricity distributor submitting its guidance numbers on power requirement and purchased power volume. This so-called load factor can guide NAPOCOR on the number of customers that will avail of the customer choice program.
MERALCO hatched the program in April through a letter to Malacañan. The Palace then directed NAPOCOR to discuss the details of the program and implement it two weeks. The two weeks came and went, with both parties failing to come up with the guidelines.
The program was supposedly unconditional but MERALCO has asked that its IPPs be dispatched on minimum energy quantity to run their plants at cost-efficient levels. Niel V. Mugas
posted by philpower @ 11:27 AM,
