System unreadiness to delay power retail access for sectors

CEBU, Philippines - Although the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) has announced the opening of its retail access for industries by December of this year, the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (PIPPA) expressed fears that implementation will be delayed due to system un-readiness.

PIPPA president Ernesto Pantangco the “open access” regime may be implemented in full-swing probably next year, because there are still a lot of system upgrades to be done, such as accounting, billing, settlement system, and shifting of computer program from wholesale to retail.

This system upgrade paving the way for the retail market to avail of power supply direct from the sources, may require another large investment from the government.

“Realistically, we think that implementation of open access will be next year,” Pantangco said.

Also, WESM still has to intensify its awareness campaign to targeted consumers of the retail access, otherwise, this may not be understood by industry end-users, specifically industries which consume at least one megawatt.

PIPPA is composed of 29 power generation companies with 11,604 megawatt, or 84.7 percent of Philippine total installed capacity.

Under the “open access’ regime big power consumers, such as manufacturing companies, retail establishments, and other industries can directly source their electricity requirement from WESM.

Eric Niño Louis of WESM institutional relations department said there is a big possibility that end-users like residential electricity consumers can also avail of the WESM channeled power supply offered by participating suppliers.

This will be realized if the “open access” regime will finally be implemented in the Philippines, he said.

Open access policy is similar to the power supply option program of PSOP, where high-load electricity consumers are given the power to choose their own energy supplier but only on a voluntary basis.