Three retail electricity suppliers (RES) under Aboitiz Power Corporation and one under Citicore Power, Inc. were added to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) list of participants under its Green Energy Option Program (GEOP).
AboitizPower RES firms now included in the list are Aboitiz Energy Solutions, Inc., which caters to corporate clients, and AdventEnergy, Inc., which serves end-users within economic zones specifically using renewable energy.
Also in the GEOP list is Prism Energy, Inc., a joint venture 60% owned by Aboitiz and 40% owned by Vivant Corporation catering to contestable customers in Cebu. AboitizPower and Vivant also jointly own the Visayan Electric Company, the country’s second-largest power distributor, which serves most areas in Metro Cebu.
Rounding up the list of new participants is Citicore Energy Solutions, Inc. Its parent firm recently forged a joint venture with AC Energy, a previously named GEOP participant, for the construction of a 72-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Pampanga.
With the recent additions, AboitizPower dominates the GEOP list with a total of five participants, the other two being SN Aboitiz Power-Magat (SNAP-Magat) and SNAP-RES.
Other GEOP participants include Lopez-owned BacMan Geothermal, Inc. and First Gen Energy Solutions Inc. (FGES), as well as Sparc-Solar Powered Agri-Rural Communities Corporation.
Launched in 2018, the GEOP complies with Section 9 of Republic Act 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008. It acts as a voluntary mechanism that allows consumers who consume at least 1000 kilowatts to source their power supply from an RE supplier.
The GEOP’s framework is similar to the Energy Regulatory Commission’s retail competition and open access (RCOA) policy, wherein contestable customers can directly contract with a RES for the volume, rate, and package of services that it prefers. Both the GEOP and the RCOA intend to lower electricity prices by introducing competition among various players.
