Meralco to spread collection of additional fees

The Energy Regulatory Commission has confirmed the proposal of power distributor Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to spread the collection of additional bill deposits over a 12-month period to ease the impact of these charges on its customers.

An ERC official said Meralco offered to implement its bill deposit adjustments starting January next year.

The proposal was made “without prejudice to whatever action the ERC would take following its review of the existing regulations on the bill deposit requirement,” said ERC executive director Francis Saturnino Juan.

This means that Meralco can start collecting the additional bills deposits from roughly 90,000 customers starting January 2013 as intended. The original plan was to give customers only 30 days to settle their deposit insufficiency starting October.

The ERC issued the confirmation once it made sure that the proposed scheme would be consistent with the regulations stipulated under the Magna Carta for Electricity Consumers and the Distribution Service and Open Access Rules (DSOAR), Juan explained. The rules authorize utilities to impose bill deposits and implement the necessary adjustments.

A Meralco official privy to the matter said that the distribution utility has already secured the regulator’s nod and is set to start collections by January 2013.

Last October, some of Meralco’s customers received a notice in their power bills to pay an additional amount to cover the adjustments in their bill deposits. These deposits serve as “security” for unpaid electricity bills.

For the first time, Meralco adjusted the bill deposits, which should be equivalent to the electricity consumed by customers in one month.

Each customer whose kilowatt-hour consumption had risen by at least 10 percent or more from the time it first started using the services of Meralco would thus have to pay an additional amount for the bill deposit.

The bill deposit is a standard fee paid for when applying for a connection with any distribution utility like Meralco. The amount deposited may be adjusted later on depending on the customer’s actual monthly bills. It may also be redeemed should the customer choose to terminate Meralco’s services.

The utility company explained that only customers who have received at least three disconnection notices or whose electric service has actually been disconnected in the past 12 months prior to their contract anniversary date have received these notification letters.

Customers who have been diligent in paying their electricity bills on or before the due date, meanwhile, were not affected.