The National Power Corp. (NPC) is awaiting for the President to issue a sovereign guarantee for a proposed P5-billion credit line to further improve the state-run firm’s budget this year.
NPC said for this year, its estimated fuel requirements at a rate of P76.28 per liter is at 150,555 kiloliters equivalent to P11.48 billion.
However, NPC said its current available fuel budget of P7.53 billion at rates of P74.35 per liter, can only purchase 100,608 kiloliters which will run out by end-August if no other measures are taken.
“With regard to the P5 billion that NPC is working with the Department of Finance, we are still awaiting the sovereign guarantee to be issued by the President. We are looking at P5 billion and we are hoping this could come in within the month and this will be part of our funding sources for 2023 to somehow alleviate our requirements for the year,” said Odette Rivera, NPC manager for strategic planning, in a virtual briefing yesterday.
NPC said because of higher fuel prices and without the guarantee of additional funds, it will be forced to further limit the running time of its power plants supplying electricity in off-grid areas just to be able to have fuel supply until the end of the year, relative to its available money.
“The idea that was presented is to effectively ration available fuel throughout the entire year. We had initially announced the rationing to start as early as February but we have not finished the consultations so we decided to defer it for consideration by March,” said Fernando Martin Roxas, NPC president.
Roxas said the fuel will be rationed as fairly as possible to different electric cooperatives that are set to be affected.
“The big issue is the funding deficit. There is fuel to be bought but the funds to buy is the problem… I hope that we can work together to manage a rationing, it will be better for everybody but of course NPC will do its best to garner additional funding but at some point we need to be prepared to actually bear some of the costs,” Roxas added.
NPC operates Small Power Utilities Group (SPUG) plants nationwide that are located in islands and communities that are not connected to the main transmission grid.
NPC said that under the rationing plan, 84 SPUG plants that currently run 24×7 will be forced to only operate 15 hours a day.
As for the other 72 SPUG plants that operate 16 hours and below, those who currently supply 16 hours will be lessened to 12 hours while those that generate below 16 hours at present will have to operate only 5 hours per day.
The operations of SPUG power plants are partly funded by revenues from power sales and from the Universal Cost for Missionary Electrification (UCME) charge being collected from customers that are connected to the main power grid.
Apart from the P5 billion sovereign guarantee, other measures being considered to beef up NPC’s budget include the Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of an increased UCME charge; additional subsidies from the national government; as well as the possibility of an upward adjustment in the rates of electric cooperatives in missionary areas that are deemed “more capable of paying.”
