THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) eyes to lower kilowatt hours (kWh) the threshold of the retail competition and open access (RCOA) program to customers in three to four years.
Under the current provisions of RCOA programs such as the Competitive Retail Electricity Market (CREM), businesses are allowed to make a choice and directly tap their own energy supplier if they have a monthly consumption of at least 500 kWh.
For the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP), customers can freely choose their own suppliers if they want their electricity to be purely from renewable sources.
“That is our goal but how soon and how we will design the lowering of the threshold, that’s what we need to study. We’ve been studying it so that’s what we need to formalize. But we want to announce it ahead of time so that DUs (distribution utilities) can also prepare because the biggest impact would be on the DUs (as) their captive customer base will be shifting to the contestable,” Monalisa Dimalanta, ERC chair, told reporters in a media forum in Taguig City last week.
Last month, the ERC released a report showing that average price of electricity in the retail electricity market for the first quarter of 2024 is lower compared to average rates for full year 2023 of captive customers served by DUs.
ERC said based on the report prepared by its Market Operations Service-Retail Market Division on the CREM, supply prices of retail electricity suppliers in the first quarter of 2024 varied from P3.57 per kWh to as high as P7.67 per kWh, with a weighted average price of P5.49 per kWh. The regulatory body said the amount is significantly lower than the 2023 weighted average generation charges of DUs for captive customers in the main grids of Luzon at P7.0665 per kWh and Visayas at P7.7093 per kWh and the national average of P6.7460 per kWh.
ERC said a report published by the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. also found out that in 2023, CREM customers realized an estimated total savings of P46 billion because their rates are 23 percent lower compared to DU average rates.
