Three house bills that seek to lower the system loss cap in electricity bills went through initial deliberations with the House Committee on Energy yesterday.
House bill 942 filed Rep. Tobias M Tiangco seek to remove the allowable system loss from Private Utility Companies and reduce the cap on recoverable system losses of rural electric cooperatives from fourteen percent to five percent.
Meanwhile, House Bill 2297 of Rep Maximo B. Rodriguez Jr eyes to prohibit private electric companies from collecting system losses from consumers. While the cap of recoverable system loss of rural cooperatives will only be to a maximum level of 5 percent.
Another house bill, House Bill 6341 filed by Rep Rodel M. Batocabe, Alfredo A. Garbin, Jr, and Christopher S. Co will prohibit Distribution Utilities from collecting system loss from consumers.
“The main purpose of this bill is really number one is to remove the systems loss charged by private companies,” Rep. Tiangco said.
Tiangco said that system loss passed on to the consumers makes things worse, considering that the Philippines has one of the highest power rates.
Meanwhile, both the Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy expressed their support on the movement made by the Congress to lower the cap of the system loss.
“WE support the intent of the congress para maibaba ang system loss pero sana icondisder natin yung cost of improving the distribution facilities,” the ERC said during the hearing.
The DOE has yet to submit its official paper to the energy committee regarding the system loss, but they have already expressed support for the house bills.
