Transmission charges up in March, says NGCP

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) announced Wednesday that transmission charges, that would be reflected on the bills of power grid consumers across the country, were hiked this month.

At a press conference in San Juan City, NGCP head of Revenue Management Julius Ryan Datinggaling said that overall transmission charges have gone up due to higher ancillary services (AS) rate despite the decline seen in its wheeling rate.

In particular, Datinggaling said that NGCP’s wheeling rate, or what it charges for its primary service of delivering power, has declined to P0.5252 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from P0.5422 per kWh.

However, the AS rate went up to P0.6975 per kWh from P0.6640 per kWh.

This cost includes the second tranche of the settlement of the remaining 70% AS cost from the Reserve Market for March 2024, according to Datinggaling.

AS charges pertain to the cost for AS sourced from the AS Reserve Market and those for AS providers with bilateral contracts with NGCP.

AS serves as an available generation capacity for dispatch for contingency in case transmission or power generation problems occur.

It forms part of the total electricity bill as AS charge, which covers the expenses for grid stability and reliability.

With the increase in AS rate offsetting the decrease in wheeling charge, the overall transmission charges for the month has gone up to P1.3668 per kWh from P1.3504 per kWh month-on-month.

"For the March 2025 billing of the end-consumers, NGCP charges only 52 centavos per kWh for the delivery of its services. The bulk of transmission charges is for AS, which is remitted directly to AS providers," said the NGCP official.

He said that NGCP does not earn from AS and did not benefit from the increase in prices.

The grid operator has been explaining that the AS charge is a pass-through cost, and generating companies benefited from this increase.

AS are support services used to balance and stabilize the grid during power supply-demand imbalance. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News