MANILA, Philippines — A leeway of six months will be given to contestable customers before they can switch on their power suppliers under the open access and retail competition (OARC) regime in the deregulated power industry.
Based on the draft rules presented by the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC), it was specified that “initially, switching is allowed after 6 months.”
The rules prescribe that “customer switching” will entail “commercial transfer of a contestable customer from one supplier to another.”
To be qualified as a contestable customer, participants must have a peak demand average of 1.0 megawatt or higher within the period prescribed by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
PEMC’s role in the market’s open access era will be vital as all qualified contestable customers will be integrated as participants – either directly or indirectly – in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). The market operator is also the duly-designated central registration body (CRB) in the open access policy enforcement.
PEMC has noted that customer-switching parameters may delve with: Changes in counterparty (of indirect members); termination or expiration of supply contracts by the customer or the supplier; and relocation of service address of the end-user, either within the same or in another franchise area.
It has been proposed that switching shall only be made “effective by the end of a billing period.” For prospective open access customers, the switching option is one form of enticement because they can run away from suppliers which cannot meet their preferred level of service.
While open access is already a long-awaited development in the power industry, the qualified end-users may still need to wait a little longer based on the revised timeline issued by the Department of Energy.
If it is any consolation, the department will at least re-open this month the stakeholders’ consultations on the OARC implementation, with a kick-off process in Iloilo City.
In an invitation sent to the Retail Electricity Suppliers Association (RESA), Energy Undersecretary Josefina Patricia Asirit has specified that “the discussion will focus on the draft rules for the integration of retail competition in the WESM.”
The stakeholder consultation, she pointed out, will similarly touch on the OARC transitory rules just recently re-issued by the power industry regulator.
***
Source: Myrna M. Velasco, Manila Bulletin. (7 October 2012)
Comment here