Consunji Group ventures into retail electricity

MANILA, Philippines - The Consunji Group is making its foray into retail electricity supply after obtaining a license last year.

In a recent briefing, DMCI Holdings chairman Isidro Consunji said SEM-Calaca RES Corp. is now looking for customers after receiving its license to operate.

SCRC is the retail electricity supplier (RES) arm of the Semirara Mining and Power Corp.

To develop its client base, SCRC has been aggressively marketing to contestable customers qualified under current regulations of the Energy Regulatory Commission.

As  RES, SCRC will source its power requirements from SMPC’s power generation assets - Sem-Calaca Power Corp. and Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp., which have a total combined capacity of 900 megawatts.

At present, SMPC is the only power producer in the country that owns and mines its own fuel source.

This allows the company to generate affordable baseload power for the Luzon and Visayas grids.

Many power players have entered the market ahead of the Consunji Group but officials said the industry still has a lot of room to grow.

“We are not an early entrant but we’re optimistic about our prospects. The unserved market is sizable and we are well positioned to compete despite the stiff market situation,” Consunji said.

As of June this year, there were 1,377 contestable customers in Luzon while there are 184 contestable customers in Visayas with a total demand of around 3,830 MW, according to the Competitive Retail Electricity Market (CREM).

About 713 of these contestable customers with a total demand of about 1,780 MW are still getting their power requirements from their distribution utilities.

 The ERC previously set Feb. 26 as the deadline for contestable customers with an average monthly peak demand of at least one MW to source power from a licensed RES.