The Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (PHILRECA) is urging an amendment to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001, which would allow the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) to build power plants for ancillary reserve services.
PHILRECA submitted a position paper to the Senate, appealing for the amendment of Section 47 of the Republic Act No. 9136, or the EPIRA law, during the hearing for the red and yellow alerts.
In a report by the Manila Standard, PHILRECA Executive Director Janeene Depay-Colingan said that allowing NAPOCOR to build and operate power plants for ancillary services would help ease the yellow and red alerts.
This was an important consideration, added Depay-Colingan, as the government cannot solely rely on the private sector because “their nature and character is central to profit and capital accumulation.”
In Section 47 of the EPIRA, it is specified that the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation’s undisposed producing assets and independent power producer contracts are the only sources of electricity from which NAPOCOR may generate and distribute power.
Furthermore, NAPOCOR is not permitted to take on any further obligations for purchasing electricity through bilateral agreements with suppliers or generation companies.
The executive director said that authorizing NAPOCOR to construct generation facilities would not only secure the reliability of the power supply but also suggest a low-cost alternative source for MCOs [member-consumers].
The association also suggested expediting the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) approval of the EC’s temporary authorization to enter into emergency power supply agreements.
PHILRECA believes that the requests before the ERC are a major factor in ECs’ vulnerability to the WESM (Wholesale Electricity Spot Market). The first objective of the commission should be to determine if the application of ECs was approved in a timely manner.
