THE PROVINCIAL Board of Benguet has approved a resolution seeking full disclosure of the National Grid Corporation's petition to pass on to customers a total of P327.52 million additional expenditures for the repair of facilities damaged by recent calamities.
The NGCP earlier asked the Energy Regulation Commission to allow it to collect force majeure pass-through costs amounting to P327.52 million from 2018 to 2020, or until the amount is fully recovered.
In order to recover the said loss, the company is looking to charge an additional P0.83 kilowatt (kw) a month for 2018, P0.86 per kw a month in 2019 and P0.9 per kw a month in 2020.
Sponsored by Provincial Board Nestor Fongwan Jr., the resolution said the additional charges should not be passed to the consumers but should be considered as operational loss.
"The foregoing recovery of the damages incurred by NGCP is unreasonable and will strongly burden its customers in Luzon and in the province of Benguet," said the resolution.
The amount was incurred by the NGCP because of the damages brought by Typhoon Nina prior to the transmission of assets and other related facilities in Luzon which caused the massive power interruption in December of 2016.
The approved resolution noted that NGCP spent P134.4 million in capital and operating expenditures for the immediate repair, restoration and rehabilitation of damaged transmission assets.
The company asked the ERC to declare the typhoon as a force majeure event after it damaged its transmission assets and facilities in the region in December 2016.
In its letter to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, the NGCP requested for an ample time to prepare its presentation regarding the matter and to be accommodated next month.
