Published December 25, 2017, 10:00
PM By Myrna M. Velasco
The lingering interruption of
‘business flows’ and customer switching in the retail competition and open
access (RCOA) policy of the restructured electricity sector will likely persist
as the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) stated that it is not inclined at
drafting any new guidelines that shall support the newly-issued RCOA Circular
of the Department of Energy.
The DOE-issued edict in November
targeted to lower the threshold of RCOA to 750 kilowatts and then to the
aggregation level of 500kW; and had also set the enforcement of the policy on
voluntary basis.
The DOE Circular has been intended
to ‘cure’ the questioned RCOA policies in a pending case at the Supreme Court,
but for the policy imposition to really get into implementation, it has to be
underpinned by guidelines that must be issued by the ERC.
Nevertheless, ERC Chairperson Agnes
T. Devanadera made it clear that the regulatory body is more predisposed to
just wait for the final verdict of the Supreme Court as to the fate of the RCOA
policy.
She told reporters that they still
have their hands tied as to the next step relating to RCOA in spite of the new
DOE Circular, so their prudent recourse is to just hold their horses until the
issuance of a ruling from the high court.
“We can’t draft the (RCOA)
guidelines because we would also need to anchor our next steps with what the SC
will rule upon,” she stressed.
The players in the power industry
are hoping that the ‘unwanted break’ in the RCOA sphere of the business could
already be resolved with the recently-issued DOE circular, but it appears now
that such had just been an exercise in futility without any supporting
guidelines from the ERC.
The ERC’s task on RCOA enforcement
is critically important, because it is the one issuing licenses to retail
electricity suppliers (RES) and had also been laying down the rules for
competitive play in the entire sector.
As of the latest count of the
Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC), the central registration body
for RCOA, there are now 1,049 participants in the retail electricity market,
featuring multiplicity of buyers and sellers.
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