The effective transmission rate for December slipped to P1.35 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from last month’s P1.51/kWh, driven by changes in consumption, officials of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said Wednesday.

In a briefing, Julius Ryan Datingaling, NGCP Assistant Vice President and head of the Revenue Management Development, said the rate adjustment in the Luzon grid is a drop of P0.22/kWh due to an increase in energy consumption.

On the other hand, the Visayas grid posted a P0.22/kWh increase in rate due to a decrease in energy consumption, and the Mindanao grid by P0.4/kWh because of an increase in the ancillary service (AS) rate, which is based on the electricity purchased for support of the capacity and is priced per megawatt.

In the same briefing, NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza explained that the NGCP does not gain from these rate movements because its collections are capped, and these rates depend on the distribution utilities.

She said the transmission rates are driven by consumption, not the rate of service.

Because of these intricacies, Alabanza underscored the need to unbundle these rates to make them transparent.

“Over the last year, we saw the contribution of the ancillary services on the movement in prices, which is a pass-through cost and does not go to NGCP. So, people would know that if there are rate upticks, it’s not solely because of NGCP,” she said.

PNA PHOTO