MANILA — The Department of Energy has sought advise from the Joint Congressional Power Commission whether there is a legal impediment for the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. as the registration and billing agent for open access and retail competition.
“We have sought clarification from JCPC and we have had a lot of interaction with Senate, House, and JCPC chair on this matter. There is general agreement that the most ideal place to put in and get it [open access] started is PEMC,” Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras told reporters.
PEMC is currently the operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, the trading floor of electricity. It handles the billing and settlement transactions between buyers and sellers of electricity.
Almendras said PEMC would be handle the central registration and account billing for open access but government will “outsource to a bank the entire settlement operation” because of the heavy number of transactions involved.
PEMC currently has around 80 existing players but with the entry of open access, it would have to handle an additional 800 players. Open access allows for large power users of one megawatt monthly consumption to choose their power supplier and the entry of competition is expected to bring down power rates.
“We're looking at a four to five month period for the infrastructure or the facility [of open access]. It may not have to be procured. It can be over and top of the existing MMS [Market Management System], which is really the key to being able to roll it out, if the fact that you don't have build from scratch but rather you already have an existing MMS and then you just add over 800 players to the existing 80 players there,” Almendras said.
He assured that open access will happen in the third quarter “unless somebody starts filing cases or TROs that will prevent us from doing certain things.”
Almendras earlier said the department would not entertain proposals from the private sector to put up or finance the infrastructure of open access and retail competition to ensure market integrity.
"We’re not asking anyone to pay for the infra because we have money for the infra. We already approved that at Cabinet level, that the allocation for the [infra]...It's not a very big amount, it’s something we can afford to pay for," Almendras said.
Almendras denied that there was an offer from San Miguel Corp. to pay for and put up the infrastructure for open access, which would allow large power users to choose their own electricity suppliers."
"We have not received any formal offer from anyone to pay for the infra. It is better if the government does it because I do not want any questions in the future. I want the infrastructure, the system, the process, the procedures to be so unquestionable as far as integrity is concerned," Almendras said. (PNA)
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