ERC tackles SC ruling on supply deals with power stakeholders

MANILA, Philippines — The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) will undertake measures, including meetings with the Department of Energy (DOE) and affected power players following the Supreme Court (SC) decision requiring competitive bidding to secure power supply agreements (PSAs).

In a text message, ERC chair Agnes Devanadera said they have not yet received a copy of the SC decision, which struck down the ERC’s  order to defer the effectivity of the competitive selection process (CSP) policy and required all power players to go through CSP to secure PSAs.

“Although the commission has not received a copy of the decision, it has decided to take the necessary plans and measures to preempt and mitigate possible implications of the Supreme Court decision,” she said.

“Meetings with the DOE and affected entities such as DUs (generating utilities), gencos (generating companies) and other power industry stakeholders will be carried out this week to jointly address the issues at hand,” Devanadera said.

Devanadera, however, assured that the commission would do “everything within its legal mandate to protect the consumers relative to the impact of the recent SC decision.”

The ERC previously postponed the implementation of the CSP policy from Nov. 6, 2015 to April 30, 2016 to allow a transition period for power players.

This would mean all the PSAs approved by the ERC after November 2015 would need to be bid out as per the SC order.

This also covers all pending PSAs before the ERC.

Citing the SC decision, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said the court ruled that the ERC “committed grave abuse of discretion” for delaying the implementation of public bidding for PSAs despite existing guidelines.

“The SC said all PSA applications filed by electricity firms with the ERC on June 30, 2015 or later are “required to comply with the CSP (not April 30, 2016 as resolved by the ERC),” he said.

Cusi said the power industry would have to follow the SC decision on securing PSAs.

“We just have to respect and abide by the decision of the SC,” he said.

The SC order allows power generators to proceed with their respective projects by going through  CSP.

“It will help the project(s) get going. Definitely it will be an addition to capacity,” Cusi said.