Transmission and system operator National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGC) said Wednesday ancillary service (AS) charges drove the increase in overall transmission cost in February 2025.
NGCP said AS rates in the January 2025 billing period increased 12 percent to P0.6640 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from P0.5928 per kWh in the December 2024 billing period.
The increase was due to the impact of the first tranche of the 70 percent AS transaction from the reserve market incurred in March 2024, whose recovery was deferred by the ERC at that time.
AS charges pertain to the cost of AS sourced from the AS reserve market and those for AS providers with bilateral contracts with NGCP.
Transmission wheeling rates, or what NGCP charges for its primary service of delivering power, is at P0.5422 per kWh, up 2.03 percent from P0.5315 per kWh.
“For the NGCP’s wheeling rates, there is a slight increase of P0.01 per kWh. This slight increase is still due to low electricity consumption this month of January. You know that we have fixed revenue and that fixed revenue is what we divide by consumption, so when consumption is low, there is a slight increase in wheeling rates,” NGCP head of revenue management department Julius Ryan Datingaling said.
Overall transmission charges stood at P1.3504 per kWh in January 2025 billing period, up from P1.2583 in December 2024 billing period.
“Only P0.54 of the overall transmission rate is charged by NGCP for the delivery of its services to power consumers. This month’s transmission charge is comprised mainly of AS charges remitted directly to power generators providing ancillary services to the grid,” said NGCP.
NGCP said it does not earn from AS and did not benefit from the increase in prices.
AS charges are pass-through, and generating companies benefitted from this increase. AS are support services used to balance and stabilize the grid during power supply-demand imbalance.
