Higher ICPT surcharge for businesses from March

PETALING JAYA: The Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) surcharge for non-domestic customers will increase 1.2 sen to 2.55 sen/kWh in March 1, 2019, from 1.35 sen/kWh currently until Feb 28, 2019, according to Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB).

It said the government has approved via a letter from the Energy Commission (ST) dated Dec 14, 2018, the continued implementation of ICPT mechanism for the period of Jan 1 until June 30, 2019.

TNB said the remaining imbalance cost to be passed-through via the ICPT mechanism is RM948 million, which will be passed-through to non-domestic customers via staggered ICPT surcharge implementation.

“This staggered ICPT surcharge is a once-off implementation to allow ample notice and provide adequate transition period to the non-domestic customers. Moving forward, electricity customers will now have the ability to estimate future ICPT impact using the ICPT calculator available at www.myelectricitybill.my,“ TNB said.

TNB said due to higher fuel and generation cost for the period of July 1 until Dec 31, 2018, the additional generation cost or imbalance cost is RM1.82 billion. This is mainly due to the increase in average coal price to US$97.84/metric tonne, as compared to the forecasted coal price set in the base tariff for Regulatory Period 2 (RP2) from 2018 to 2020, which is at US$75/metric tonne.

To cushion the impact of high fuel and generation cost of RM1.82 billion to be passed through to customers via the ICPT mechanism, the government has approved that part of the surcharge for non-domestic customers, amounting to RM564 million will be funded from cost and revenue adjustment of TNB for year 2018, which was agreed during the base tariff determination in RP2 under the Incentive Based Regulation framework.

Meanwhile it said the average base tariff remain unchanged at 39.45 sen/kWh, adding that domestic (residential) customers are not affected by the ICPT surcharge.

Source: TheSunDaily