January 5, 2016 8:47 pm by RITCHIE A. HORARIO
THE Energy Regulatory Commission
(ERC) on Tuesday said it could beat the deadline set for the full
implementation of Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA) this year.
ERC Commissioner Jose Vicente
Salazar said they would make the announcement once the proposed amendments to
the Rules for Contestability are approved.
The proposed amendments focus on the
timeline for the mandatory contestability and the lowering of the threshold to
750 kilowatts (kW).
Salazar said full implementation of
RCOA is set on June 26, 2016.
“It’s moving very fast. Our belief
is that we will be able to comply with the timetable. We know that June 2016,
the 1 MW is already mandatory, we have to finish this before that time,” said
Salazar.
Based on the ERC timetable, Salazar
said, the 750-kw threshold will be mandatory by December of next year.
The ERC’s move to amend the rules is
in line with a directive of the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish
policies to facilitate the full implementation of RCOA, which officially began
on June 26, 2013.
Under the RCOA, customers with
monthly average peak demand of at least 1 megawatt (MW), classified as
contestable customers (CCs) by the ERC, can now choose the supplier of their
energy requirement.
Retail Electricity Suppliers (RES)
will directly negotiate on a wholesale basis with power-generation companies so
they can sell electricity to contestable customers at competitive rates.
The Electric Power Industry Reform
Act (Epira) of 2001 mandates that the threshold level
for contestable market shall be reduced to 750 kW.
for contestable market shall be reduced to 750 kW.
To comply with the Epira, the ERC
annually evaluates the performance of the market and gradually reduce the
threshold level until it reaches the household-demand level.
The participation in this mechanism,
however, is voluntary because contestable customers could still choose whether
to enter into retail service contracts (RSCs) or continue sourcing from their
current power distributors.
The DOE issued Department Circular
2015-06-0010 stating that all CCs, currently being served by their franchised
DUs, are mandated to secure their respective RSCs no later than June 25, 2016.
The order also applies to all CCs,
with an average demand ranging from 750 kWh and 999 kWh for the proceeding
12-month period.
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