The operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) is currently doing research to develop detailed proposals for lower threshold implementation of the Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA).
The Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) said it targets to complete studies on the overall Central Registration Body (CRB), profiling of non-interval meters, implementation framework, and retail aggregation by yearend.
The study comes after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) released a draft resolution prescribing the timeline for the implementation of the RCOA. Based on the draft resolution, the contestability threshold would be reduced to 500 kilowatts (kW) on February 26, 2021. This would be followed by a reduction to 100 kW on January 26, 2022, which will also mark the start of retail aggregation.
The RCOA would then be implemented at the household level on January 26, 2023. A ten-kilowatt threshold, however, is provided in the draft resolution for household-level implementation.
In anticipation of the lowering of the contestability threshold, IEMOP submitted a proposal back in 2018, introducing changes to retail market processes that would enable the CRB to better handle the significant volume of retail transactions.
Based on the proposal, WESM’s registration of contestable customers would be optional for those that wish to purchase part of their requirements directly from the spot market as Direct Members. This set-up is also being proposed in cases wherein the contestability threshold is lessened further given the significant volume of retail transactions. At present, all contestable customers are required to register in the WESM, most of which are Indirect Members.
