Meralco still awaiting approval of capex filing with ERC

The year is already turning in a new leaf, but the two regulatory periods of capital expenditure (capex) applications of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) totaling 139.8 billion are still awaiting regulatory approval.

These programmed capital spending have been set at 118.8 billion for regulatory year July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017; and 121.0 billion for the regulatory year ending June 30, 2019.

Scheduled capex of regulated entities like Meralco would need to go through the approval of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) before capital outlay could be earmarked for certain projects.

“These have been filed, but they’re not yet approved. The only ones partially approved were those on first and second regulatory years,” Meralco President and Chief Executive Officer Oscar S. Reyes said.

For very immediate projects, Meralco Chief Financial Officer Betty Siy-Yap indicated that the utility firm’s usual recourse is to file for emergency capex – which in the first half of 2018 alone reached as much as 14.0 billion.

“We’ve been filing for emergency capex. But what we’ve done, we manifested that we need approval because basically our lineup up of projects is already loaded,” she stressed.

The officials of the company further indicated that in the roll of these emergency capex allotments included critically loaded facilities, mandatory maintenance and requirements for new connections.

The company has also been shelling out immense capital outlay on clearing and relocation of its power facilities (i.e. electric poles) that could be traversed by the “Build, Build, Build” projects of the Duterte administration.

From January to September 2018 alone, the power distribution firm noted that it already spent 110.1 billion of its programmed capex.