CONSUMERS should expect their July power bills to go up, as the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) on Wednesday said that higher transmission rates in June would be reflected this month.
The NGCP said the average transmission rate rose to P1.4604 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) last month from May’s P1.4492 per kWh, mainly driven by higher ancillary service rates for the given period.
Ancillary service rates in particular increased to P0.7955 per kWh from P0.7220 per kWh, mostly due to higher energy consumption, while the transmission wheeling rate, or fee for delivering power through the grid, decreased to P0.5058 per kWh from P0.5607 per kWh.
The NGCP noted that the bulk of the overall transmission rates were still from ancillary services and emphasized that it does not earn anything from it.
“We at NGCP do not earn from ancillary services. These charges are directly remitted either to generation companies who have bilateral contracts with us, and to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines, or IEMOP, for ancillary services sourced from the reserves market,” it said.
