ERC eyes further easing of electricity retailing
The country’s energy regulatory plans to reduce the threshold for retail competition and open access (RCOA), which allows power consumers to purchase cheaper electricity from retailers other than the existing distributor in their area.
Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) chair Monalisa Dimalanta said the threshold for RCOA, which seeks to foster tougher competition in the market, may be slashed to 100 kilowatts.
Currently, the scheme is only open to qualified customers, or users consuming at least 500 kilowatts a month.
“‘Yun ang aming goal (That’s our goal), but how soon and how we will design the lowering of the threshold, that’s what we need to study. Actually, we’ve been studying it so that’s what we need to formalize,” she said in a chance interview last week.
But Dimalanta said this would not happen immediately as distribution utilities (DUs) would suffer the big blow.
“We want to announce it ahead of time so that DUs can also prepare…I think the biggest impact will be on the DUs because their captive customer base will be shifting to the contestable. So they need to prepare accordingly,” she said.
The ERC executive said the transition period may happen in the next three to four years.
The RCOA initially covered consumers residing in Luzon and Visayas. But last March, the ERC finally introduced this scheme to Mindanao customers, with similar rules applied.
“The Commission views the commencement of RCOA in Mindanao with immense optimism,” Dimalanta said in a previous statement.
“We will continue to support and ensure that customers in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao will be able to exercise meaningfully their power to choose suppliers as a way to realize reasonable price of electricity. Over the next few months, the ERC will conduct an aggressive information campaign to capacitate our contestable customers with the ability to effectively transact in the retail market and properly discern the best terms of power supply suited to their needs,” she added.
Dimalanta earlier said that the ERC expects more consumers to migrate to the contestable market.
