POWER distributor Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is seeking to procure 900 megawatts (MW) of electricity via a competitive selection process (CSP).
It currently has three other CSP applications pending.
“There is another one coming in — a 900-MW baseload CSP,” according to Meralco Senior Vice-President and Head of Regulatory Affairs Jose Ronald V. Valles.
Mr. Valles said the auction is scheduled for late 2025.
The proposed CSP forms part of Meralco’s 2025 power supply procurement plan to obtain over 2,100 MW of capacity, which has been approved by the Department of Energy (DoE).
The CSP policy requires distribution utilities to procure power at a least-cost basis.
Meralco has requested DoE certificates of compliance for the three other CSPs, involving 200 MW of renewable energy baseload power, 600 MW worth of baseload, and 450 MW worth of mid-merit power.
Baseload power plants generate a steady supply of electricity to meet regular demand, while mid-merit plants are designed to operate during periods of intermediate demand.
“There is another one in the pipeline but we are still waiting for the resolution of the DoE with respect to these three CSPs because these are more urgent in terms of the commercial operations date that we are looking at for the distribution utility,” Mr. Valles said.
He said that Meralco’s application for the 200-MW CSP is now under review after the power distributor submitted its reply on the comments of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) and the Energy Regulatory Commission.
The company has yet to receive the review of the ERC and PCC for its 600-MW and 450-MW CSPs.
In a statement on Sunday, Meralco confirmed receipt of the show-cause order issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for alleged failure to submit complete fuel data for the January to October 2022 period.
The order stems from the ERC’s request in January 2023 for documents related to the power supply agreement (PSA) between Meralco and Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC).
The ERC required submission of invoices and fuel cost computation for the period.
“As ERC’s directive was for the declared purpose of verifying generation charges ‘being passed on to its consumers,’ Meralco complied and provided ERC with copies of the invoices for its then existing PSA with PEDC — notwithstanding that these documents had already been previously submitted under Meralco’s regular reports to ERC,” the company said.
For the fuel cost computation, Meralco said that it clarified that its then PSA with PEDC was a financial contract with a fixed price or single tariff for the duration of the contract term.
“This means that it does not specify any fuel cost component, in contrast to a two-part tariff that distinguishes fixed costs from fuel costs on a monthly basis. Given this, the fuel cost computation was obviously not applicable,” the company said.
Following Meralco’s submission in 2023, the company said it did not receive any further communication from the ERC.
“At the outset, Meralco emphasizes that it does not only validate but scrutinizes the fuel components of the generation charges before these are passed through to its consumers,” the company said.
Meralco’s controlling stakeholder, Beacon Electric Asset Holdings, Inc., is partly owned by PLDT Inc.
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