MANILA, Philippines - SPC Power Corp. wants to enter the business of retailing electricity to end-users as the electricity market transitions into an open, retail market.
This is apart from SPC’s traditional power generation business.
SPC’s board of directors has approved the amendment of the second article of the corporation’s Articles of Incorporation.
The board approval allows the company to “engage in the business of selling, brokering, marketing, or aggregating electricity to the end-users.” But this is still subject to shareholders’ and regulatory approvals.
Power generation companies are allowed to become retail electricity suppliers (RES), which provide contestable customers the power of choice in their electricity provider under the retail competition and open access (RCOA) scheme, which is mandated by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001, the power reform law.
Contestable customers refer to the electricity end-user who is part of the “contestable market” or electricity end-users who have a choice of a supplier of electricity.
RCOA officially began on June 26, 2013. Since then, only contestable customers with at least one megawatt (MW) demand are allowed to choose their own suppliers of electricity, on a voluntary basis.
Mandatory contestability for customers with peak demand of 1 MW will take effect on December 26, 2016. For customers with at least 750 kilowatt (kW) demand, mandatory contestability is scheduled on June 26, 2017.
So far, there are 400 registered contestable customers as of end-June 2016, based on latest data from the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC), the central registration body (CRB) of the RCOA.
The Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) said the participation of contestable customers reached 400 in the first half of 2016, up from 372 as of end-2015.