Meralco P9.1B refund under review

Meralco's P9.1 billion claim for refund was labeled as “unfounded” and “premature” by the Philippine state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation.

However, the state-run firm has acknowledged that it will proceed with the refund process once the industry regulator issues the final ruling on the case.

“PSALM is currently reviewing and evaluating the voluminous documents submitted by Meralco in its compliance to ensure the accuracy of the computation of the refund/collection of line rental adjustments to consumers,” the company said.

PSALM president Emmanuel R. Ledesma Jr. said they will proceed with the refund as soon as all the parties faithfully comply with the ERC directives.

As early as 2010, a ruling by the Energy Regulatory Commission has already established that the company has been ‘double charging’ consumers on line loss components on volumes covered by transition supply contract (TSC) sales to Meralco. It is only this time that the issues are getting resolved.

Consumers are waiting if they will ever be paid back on such overcharges, and considering that the practice is continuing until now.

It was emphasized in the same ERC ruling that the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC) has already segregated the rental lines data as early as 2008 on its November to December billing. This has partly been used as basis in Meralco’s computation.

In its press statement, PSALM added that “the computation for the refund should be based on actual segregated line rentals and not merely on an outright refund or discount of the 2.98% transmission loss recovery factor charged in the time-of-use rate of National Power Corporation as proposed by Meralco.”

Ledesma has explained that the alleged overcharging arose out of the simultaneous implementation of the NPC-Meralco TSC and the price determination methodology in Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, which he claimed were both approved by the ERC.

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