Meralco expands open access market

Manila Bulletin 
Published: July 31, 2013 
Power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) is eyeing to widen its market base up to Visayas, via its retail electricity supplier unit MPower which was formed to cater to its targeted customers under retail competition and open access or RCOA.
Company President Oscar S. Reyes categorically stated that the company will calculatedly “expand its target market beyond our franchise area.”
He stressed that they will be looking at other opportunities – primarily for customers wanting to be part of the competitive retail market of the restructured electricity sector.
According to Meralco first vice president Ivanna G. dela Pena, of the 239 customers which enlisted as open access participants via central registration body Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC), 238 are from the Meralco franchise area.
And of that chunk, 151 have opted to sign up for contracts with Meralco’s MPower; which the company considers as a manifestation of continued patronage of their core ‘big load customers’.
Reyes further intimated that with MPower, Meralco “has been privileged to have been selected as the supplier of choice by a majority of contestable customers in our franchise area.”
Dela Pena said retail competition will be highly beneficial to industries or commercial end-users with high capacity factor, hence, many of the initial participants are from these segments.
Eligible contestable customers or RCOA participants are those within the 1.0 megawatt peak load demand bracket as prescribed by the rules.
The covered domains will be Luzon and Visayas; with Mindanao coming in only after the privatization of most of the generation assets serving the area.
The power industry’s competitive regime in the retail segment commenced June 26 this year, but with some birth pains still being addressed by all stakeholders.
These include open access policy enforcements at some industrial domains administered by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA); as well as the tax treatment concerns set for the power industry.  source