As the framework for renewable energy investments is being shaped by policymakers, Filipino consumers have to brace for probable line item addition in their electricity bills to be labeled as “renewable energy charge”.

Based on technical working group (TWG) discussions at the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB), this will take the form of a universal charge and may be lumped as a component of the feed-in-tariff.

There are currently five universal charges prescribed in electricity bills as an offshoot of the power industry’s restructuring, and the RE charge could be the sixth one when firmed up.

The feed in tariff (FiT), which is also branded as the “clean energy cash back scheme,” is among the policy provisions being sorted out by the RE board to stimulate investments in the nascent industry.

The RE charge was proposed to underpin the ‘green energy option program’ set forth under the RE law, and policy framers are now evaluating schemes on how such corresponding charges be passed on to end-users without triggering price shocks.

It was gathered that further discussions on the RE charge will be done during the scheduled RE workshops in Subic toward the end of this month.

It has been explained that the RE charge will be an additional line item in the bill, but industry players are hoping that the impact on consumers would be negligible “since it will be distributed across all kilowatt hours sold.”

“There’s no final decision on this (RE charge) yet, but we are exploring parameters on how these charges will eventually be treated in the bills or passed on to end-users,” a source from the NREB said.

As far as charges are concerned, one direction of policy discussions is on the price for the net energy that will be exported by the net metering customer, relative to regular tariffs already applied by the distribution utilities.

It was explained that even if a net metering customer is energy neutral (meaning its energy consumption is equal to the energy exported), the customer still needs to pay charges to the DUs for setting up capacity of fixed assets to deliver that power to the customer.

The policy framers though are taking extra caution on their deliberations of the proposed charges to avoid duplication of expenses.

Reflecting RE-related charges in billing cycles are also being thoroughly discussed as industry stakeholders fine-tune the remaining guidelines for the RE Law’s implementation.