PSALM to stop charging fees for stranded power costs

MANILA, Philippines — Starting this month, electricity consumers will no longer pay 5.43 centavos per kilowatt-hour to pay for the cost of power incurred by power plants run by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM).

PSALM said in a statement it has collected as of January a total of about P5.12 billion for such purpose.

In April 2019, the state firm secured approval from the Energy Regulatory Commission to collect such amount which appears in consumers’ monthly bill as the “universal charge-stranded contract cost.”

The charges were meant for the remaining financial obligations that the government incurred, through the National Power Corp., due to the construction of new power plants to alleviate the power shortages in the 1990s.—Ronnel W. Domingo