Revised power bidding guidelines out by end of September —ERC

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is conducting a review of the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) as it eyes to release the revised  guidelines by the end of the month in light of concerns raised by power industry stakeholders.

In an interview with reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Makati City on Tuesday, ERC chairman and CEO Monalisa Dimalanta said, “We’re targeting to release the revised draft [guidelines] within the week so we can have a public consultation next week… so that by end of September we can finalize the guidelines.”

The CSP refers to the procurement mechanism, mandated by the Department of Energy (DOE), wherein a distribution utility procures supply from a generation company through a competitive bidding to get the least cost of power for the consuming public.

DOE Circular (DC) 2018-02-0003 “Adopting and Prescribing the Policy for the Competitive Selection Process in the Procurement by the Distribution Utilities of Power Supply Agreement (PSA) for the Captive Market” governs the CSP mechanisms.

Dimanlanta said power industry stakeholders raised issues on policy consistency, pricing, and the terms of a PSA through a CSP.

“One, raised by the stakeholders is  consistency with the DOE DC… so we’re revisiting that,” the ERC chair said.

“And then the second is the fixed price and the term,” she said, noting that the ERC’s current draft guidelines are only applicable for PSAs with terms of less than or up to a maximum of 10 years.

Dimalanta explained that the DOE’s Green Energy Auction Program already addresses the need for long-term contracting.

“Maybe we don’t need the CSP as the mechanism for long-term contracting because it’s the DOE program that will address the long-term contracting for that,” she said.

“That’s really the mindset that we have when we formulated the CSP guidelines,” she added.

The Green Energy Auction is being undertaken by the DOE to facilitate investments in renewable energy in a bid to achieve the target of 35% renewable energy in the energy mix by 2035 and 50% by 2040.

The program seeks to ensure competitive selection of firms to obtain rights to develop renewable energy capacity.—LDF, GMA Integrated News