More Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) has secured a provisional Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) following the company’s acquisition of distribution assets to perform its mandate to distribute electricity in Iloilo City.
The ERC has also revoked the provisional CPCN of Panay Electric Co. (PECO), the former power distributor.
In a three-page order issue last week, the commission said MORE Power has complied with the requirement of obtaining adequate distribution assets after it took “possession and deployed personnel to man and oversee” all five substations in Iloilo City’s five districts and all the distribution lines.
This was after it was issued a writ of possession (WOP) by the Iloilo City Regional Trial Court (RTC) as an exercise of the new utility’s power to expropriate all distribution assets in the city.
The regulatory body said there is no need to keep the provisional CPCN issued to PECO after the old utility’s congressional franchise lapsed last January 2019 and Congress mandated that it operate under a provisional ERC permit until MORE Power completes its transition to be Iloilo City’s new distribution utility.
ERC has also allowed MORE Power to collect the old distribution charge that were allowed for PECO to collect as payment from Iloilo City’s electricity consumers and source for power supply agreements.
