Senate committee on energy chairman Sherwin Gatchalian is proposing to lift the public offering requirement provision in the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001 to encourage more companies to invest in the country’s power generation.
Gatchalian said the public listing requirement proved to be burdensome to generation companies especially to small renewable energy generation companies have difficulty complying.
The senator’s proposed Senate Bill No. 2217 provides that section 43(T) of EPIRA no longer serves its purpose.
“The initial purpose of the public offering requirement for generation companies in the EPIRA has been rendered irrelevant given all the developments in the electric power sector.
If we were to encourage more investments in generation to meet our demand needs in the next 20 years, it is crucial to eliminate this additional barrier to entry,” he said.
The countryl needs an additional capacity of 71,817 megawatts (MW) installed capacity by 2040.
