The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has formed a subsidiary that will act as its retail electricity supplier as part of its move to comply with one of the provisions of the retail competition and open access (RCOA) rules.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Meralco said its new affiliate Vantage Energy Solutions and Management Inc. filed an application for a RES license on November 29.
“As a distribution utility (DU) affiliated RES, Vantage Energy intends to provide retail energy services which will include wholesale contracting, energy trading and sourcing, marketing, selling and aggregating electricity, billing, collection and the provision of other value added services to contestable customers,” the power distributor said.
End-users with a peak demand of at least one megawatt (MW) are required to get their electricity supply from an RES by December 26. However, the Energy Regulatory Commission moved the deadline to February 26, 2017.
Meralco officials previously said they were obtaining a license to put up an affiliate RES. This came after the Supreme Court rejected its case with a regional trial court (RTC) to prevent the implementation of the new RCOA rules.
Meralco’s current local RES MPower accounts for half of the market share of end-users within its franchise, or an equivalent of 18 percent of the total contestable market nationwide.
