An official of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has urged the public to take advantage of the Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA) program to save on energy costs and choose an electricity provider.
In a briefing Thursday, lawyer Chiara Angela Blanco, ERC Energy Regulation Office’s Contestable Market Division chief, said the Retail Aggregation Program (RAP), which is part of RCOA, currently benefits around 311 groups, with 4,997 members nationwide and demand of around 250.01 megawatts.
Initially, the threshold that allows applicants to enroll under RAP was 1 megawatt (MW) in 2013. The threshold has been reduced to 500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2020 and to 100 kWh in June this year.
Blanco said not only the commercial establishments can avail of the program since residential consumers can now tap it if they pool their requirements to demand competitive rates.
Asked for ERC’s target on how many more consumers it aims to include in the program at least this year, Blanco said there is no actual figure since enrollment in the program is voluntary.
“That’s why we are talking to our customers, educating them for them to know about the program is and to take advantage of it… Our target is really opening up the market to other lower-threshold customers for them to be able to participate,” she said.
Francis del Val, COREnergy, Inc. President, said during the same briefing that RAP allows power consumers to save as much as 30 percent compared to the rates set by their current distribution utility (DU).
He said their customers, prior to the shift towards RAP, were encouraged to enroll under the program after knowing that it is a government-regulated program.
Citing a statement by Blanco, del Val said thousands of power consumers will become contestable in the coming months.
“That is a very, very big opportunity, and it also signifies a very big need. At a time when we are faced with so many challenges as a country because of the crisis, we have to be out there to be helping every single business,” he added. (PNA)
