ERC to resolve 640 PSA applications by mid-2020

By Lenie Lectura - January 23, 2019

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/01/23/erc-to-resolve-640-psa-applications-by-mid-2020/

THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is doubling efforts to resolve over 600 pending applications for power supply agreements (PSA).

ERC Chairman Agnes Devanadera said the agency is targeting to resolve over 640 PSA applications in 18 months.

 “We are studying how to fast-track and address the backlog…. We have targets and every commissioner has an ad-hoc committee that’s why we are moving forward. We are better organized,” Devanadera said.

The ERC, composed of four commissioners and one chairperson, is the regulatory body performing the combined quasi-judicial, quasi-legislative and administrative functions in the electric industry.

 “We have pending rules, and since we have new commissioners, we have to hear their side and their comments so our timeline is also affected. We are very active for 2019, so that we will be able to deliver as much as our work now is on housekeeping,” she said.

The ERC chief is also hoping the PSA applications of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) would be resolved soon.

 “The commission is a collegial body so the consensus, right now—the sense of the commission—is to wait because the case in the Supreme Court has been included in the calendar several times already. It’s moving, so we are hoping the SC will dispose of that,” she said.

Meralco and its power-generation arm, Meralco PowerGen (MGen), await the long-delayed approval by the ERC of seven PSAs filed three years ago and which have already undergone all the necessary ERC processes and public hearings. 

These seven PSAs, however, also await resolution at the SC.  Earlier, a consumer group asked the SC to block ERC approval of the 20-year PSAs between Meralco and a number of power-generation companies covering 3,551megawatts (MW).

Devanadera had said the seven PSAs are not just pending before the SC, but the division endorsed these to the en banc. This means that the entire SC will hear the case instead of a division.

 “Since these are being heard at the en banc we might as well wait for it,” she said.

She said that if there had been no case filed at the High Tribunal, then the ERC would have long issued a resolution on Meralco’s PSA applications.  “Out of deference, both to Congress and to the Supreme Court, we have not acted on Meralco’s PSAs,” the ERC chief said.

The SC case stemmed from allegations that ERC officials gave due preference to Meralco by extending the deadline for compliance of the competitive selective process (CSP).

The ERC had reset the CSP’s effectivity date from November 6, 2015 to April 30, 2016, exempting the PSAs from undergoing transparent and public bidding ordained in the CSP. It was alleged the ERC moved the deadline allegedly to accommodate Meralco.