QuestionsQuestions (ERC)
The Guidelines are issued pursuant to Section 43(f) of Republic Act No. 9136 (EPIRA), Rule 15 Section 5 of its Implementing Rules and Regulations, and Article 3.4 of the Philippine Distribution Code (PDC).
Technical Loss, Non-Technical Loss, and Administrative Loss.
Technical Loss is the loss inherent in the physical delivery of electric energy, including conductor losses (load loss), transformer core loss (no-load or fixed loss), and potential/current coils in metering equipment; it covers specified system equipment such as lines, transformers, voltage regulators, capacitors, reactors, and metering burdens.
Losses in metering equipment, including the electrical burdens of instrument transformers, are considered part of Technical Loss.
Non-Technical Loss is the residual after subtracting Administrative Loss and Technical Loss from Total Distribution System Losses, with pilferage-related recovered energy (subject to ERC approval) subtracted from Non-Technical Loss.
Administrative Loss is the component accounting for electric energy used by the Distribution Utility in the proper operation of the Distribution System. It is calculated as the sum of actual (metered) electric energy consumption of essential connected loads of specified facilities during the billing period, subject to ERC approval.
It is computed as the net of all electric energy input and all electric energy output for a specified billing period; losses are calculated monthly and aligned with the Distribution Utility’s billing cycle.
Technical Loss shall be calculated through Three-Phase Load Flow simulations of the unbalanced distribution system using appropriate Network and Load Models.
It must capture all technical losses from the incoming and outgoing delivery points of the unbalanced three-phase distribution system—from sub-transmission lines to service drops—using metering points as the delivery points for technical loss calculations.
Cap on Technical Loss, Cap on Non-Technical Loss, and Cap on Administrative Loss—each corresponds respectively to recoverable portions of Technical, Non-Technical, and Administrative Losses.
It is expressed as a percentage of electric energy input to the distribution system. It considers both historical and forecasted technical losses computed using the Annex A methodology, and ERC may group utilities based on technical characteristics.
It is expressed as a percentage of electric energy input. If a utility has a large Non-Technical Loss, it must submit a program to reduce it with specified costs and timeframe; the ERC may approve a declining cap over the program duration.
It is expressed in kilowatt-hour and based on the connected essential load of the Distribution Utility.
Expenses for technical loss reduction programs approved by the ERC are treated as capital and/or operating costs. The ERC may also implement a reward mechanism for utilities whose actual technical losses are below approved caps.
It must include proposed caps for technical, non-technical, and administrative losses; segregated system losses for the year immediately preceding the year of the new caps; and estimates for the succeeding five years using information in its Distribution Development Plan (DDP).
The petition must contain data using ERC-DSL-01 through ERC-DSL-23 templates (e.g., Administrative Load, Customer Data, Billing Cycle Data, Load Curve, Bus Data, sub-transmission line data, transformer data, primary/secondary line and service drop data, voltage regulator/capacitor/inductor data, energy sales data, and other technical data).
Petitions must be submitted in hard copies (one original and three conformed copies, duly signed and verified by the Responsible Person) in legal format, plus four electronic copies on CD-ROM: two in PDF or alteration-proof format and two as text file or Excel for review and simulation.
The utility must submit quarterly monthly system loss reports (technical, non-technical, administrative) before the end of the month following the quarter. The ERC monitors and verifies compliance annually.