_{Shown in photo: Outgoing ERC Chair Monalisa Dimalanta at the ceremony marking FPIP’s RAP transition to First Gen}

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is encouraging government agencies to take part in the Retail Aggregation Program (RAP) to help lower energy costs and promote competition in the power sector.

“We really still need to hopefully push for that advocacy among government agencies so that we can show that government leads the way also in this item, but I primarily leave it up to them,” said ERC Chairperson and CEO Monalisa Dimalanta, whose resignation takes effect on August 8.

Dimalanta said this initiative is already under discussion and forms part of a broader strategy to empower institutions through retail competition and open access (RCOA). RAP allows groups and institutions from different sectors to aggregate their electricity demand and choose their own supplier, potentially leading to more competitive pricing.

To support this, the ERC is preparing a “pitch deck” that outlines the available programs, including RAP, net metering, distributed energy resources (DER), and solar rooftop. “So that depending on the situation of that government agency, they can choose their own “adventure,” so to speak, as to power procurement,” she told reporters at FPIP’s RAP turnover event with First Gen.

Dimalanta also hopes the RAP will eventually benefit residential households. “That’s the roadmap to our RCOA—lowering of the threshold to household level,” she said.

She noted that the Commission had originally planned to tackle this roadmap in the third quarter, but she is now working to accelerate the timeline. “Tignan ko kung ma-accelerate namin, if we can have the roadmap for public consultation siguro by next week because most likely my last meeting with the commission will be by next week,” Dimalanta said. (“I’ll see if we can accelerate it, if we can have the roadmap for public consultation maybe by next week, because most likely my last meeting with the commission will be by next week.”)

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