ERC revises rules on gencos’ compliance certificates

MANILA, Philippines - The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has approved a resolution covering the revised rules for the issuance of certificates of compliance for generation companies and other entities with self-generation facilities.

Based the revised rules, no person may engage in the commercial generation of electricity as a generation company, qualified end-user or an entity with self-generation facilities (SGF) unless it has complied with technical, financial and environmental standards as proven by a COC.

“Excluded from the definition of SGFs are generators for households, clinics, hospitals and other medical facilities that make electricity for their own consumption,” the ERC said.

 Furthermore, the ERC said a generation company operating a renewable energy plant eligible to avail of the feed-in-tariff (FIT) must indicate in its COC application its intention to operate under the FIT system, a set of incentives for renewable energy players.

The FIT per kilowatt-hour rates in the Philippines are P9.68 for solar power, P8.53 for wind;  and P5.90 for run-of-river hydroelectric.

The 2014 Revised COC Rules amendments stemmed from several issues and concerns that needed to be addressed owing to the passage of industry-related policies, laws, rules and regulations, the ERC said.

As such, the revised rules include provisions on renewable energy (RE), the FIT rules and net-metering (NM) rules.

Net-Metering refers to a system, appropriate for distributed generation, in which a distribution grid user has a two-way (export-import) connection to the grid and would be only charged or credited by the difference in its import and export of electricity.