The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has approved The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to spend P5.5 billion for new and expansion of transmission projects this year.
This is a partial approval of NGCP’s application for capital expenditures (capex) from 2017 to 2020.
“The Commission needs to study further the propriety of the capex projects and their corresponding costs for the years 2018 up to 2020. There is no urgency to grant approval of those projects which can be done upon completion of the public hearings,” ERC chairman Jose Vicente Salazar said.
“We need to establish and ensure that the projects are indeed necessary so as not to unduly burden the consumers with exorbitant power rates,” he added.
The approval covers 58 projects out of the 65 projects proposed by the NGCP, which are found to be urgent and crucial to ensure continuous, efficient, and reliable power supply.
In the evaluation, ERC found that the NGCP’s P113.4 billion proposed total capex cost included costs beyond 2020.
ERC added that the proposed projects shall be subject to optimization based on its actual use and/or implementation during the reset process for the next regulatory period.
NGCP is also directed to implement competitive bidding for the purchase of major materials in the implementation of the proposed projects.
They are also ordered to pay, in staggered basis, the permit fee amounting to P41,311,170 for the 2017 projects.