Meralco seeks P10-B refund from PSALM

MANILA, Philippines - Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has increased the refund it is claiming from double charges of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM).

The country’s largest power distributor is already seeking P10 billion in refunds, higher than the P9.1 billion it filed last July the power sector regulator said.

“Meralco updated the calculation. It is not P9.1 billion but some other figure,” said Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) executive director Francis Saturnino Juan.

Juan said “more or less” the refund is already in the P10-billion range already.

Specifically, Meralco submitted the summary of transition supply contract line loss computation and supporting official receipts covering July 2006 to May 2012.

In March 2010, ERC ruled that there was double charging in transmission line costs for TSC quantities during the start of operations of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in Luzon.

State-run PSALM, for its part, earlier said it is still reviewing the claim of Meralco.

“Nothing in the past has prevented PSALM for filing its calculation but as far as I know, no exact figure was given by PSALM so we will leave that to the ERC,” Juan said.

Juan said ERC will also decide how to settle the pending issue.

ERC had required PSALM, WESM administrator Philippine Electricity Market Corp. and Meralco to submit supporting documents.

“Hopefully, the case will be included already in the agenda for deliberation in one of the commission meeting set on November and a decision will already be reached by then,” Juan said.

The refund is seen to benefit customers of the country’s largest power distributor.

Consolidated customer accounts of Meralco, rose 3.7 percent to a record 5.11 million as of end-June as the company added 88,391 new customers from the start of the year.

PSALM, formed by the 2001 Electric Power Industry Reform Act, is the state firm in charge of privatizing government power assets as well as managing National Power Corp.’s power plants and debt.