ERC prescribes periodic review of customer bill deposits
In the fortified rules being advanced by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), servicing distribution utilities (DUs) are being required to undertake periodic review of bill deposits they have been collecting from electricity consumers.
The cut-off period on submission of DU reports had been set December 31 each year, if the ERC-proposed new rules on monitoring and reporting process on bill deposits will finally be enforced.
A customer’s bill deposit is equivalent to the estimated billing for one month based on the load schedule submitted by the consumer to guarantee payment of his /her bill.
Prevailing rules propound that “after one and every year thereafter whenever the actual average monthly bills are more or less than 10 percent of the initial bill deposit, such deposit shall be correspondingly increased or decreased to approximate said billing.”
In the draft rules relating to monitoring of bill deposits, it was stipulated that a DU “shall prepare and submit a periodic report, under oath on or before December 31 each year, regarding the details of the total amount of bill deposit collected.”
The rules further specified that such must include “interest earned and the amount credited or refunded to customers.”
Greater transparency is similarly sought on how the bill deposits are being treated in DUs’ respective accounts, hence, the ERC is directing them to “maintain and develop in their official website a consumer information disclosing all important terms and conditions – and procedures on bill deposits in clear and simple language comprehensible to the consumers.”
The sets of information that must be furnished online shall include: The nature of the bill deposit; the rules and regulations governing bill deposit; the obligation of consumers to pay bill deposit and the requirements to pay bill deposit.
Additional information must delve with the computation of the bill deposit, including interest; the procedures on bill deposit refund; annual updates on the total amount of bill deposit collected and refunded.
Upon effectivity of the new rules, DUs are also mandated to submit prescribed documents, under oath and within the set 60-day timeframe.
These shall include the total amount of bill deposits collected; the total amount of interests earned; the total amount of bill deposits and interests already refunded; as well as sample electricity bills of residential and non-residential consumers showing the refund of bill deposit and/or the amount of interest credited to their monthly bills.