ERC blamed for recurring provincial brownouts
By Myrna M. Velasco – September 7, 2022, 2:21 PM
from Manila Bulletin
The very slow pace of evaluation and approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on the application for capital expenditures (capex) of electric cooperatives (ECs) and other distribution utilities (DUs) has been blamed for the recurring brownouts or power interruptions tormenting consumers in the provincial areas.
During a Senate hearing, Committee on Energy Chairman Raffy Tulfo interrogated the ERC why it has been taking them too long to act on the capex applications of power utilities – with some even complaining up to nine years of waiting time before their petition gets ruled upon.
The lawmaker primarily cited the grumblings of many ECs that their delayed capex approval incapacitates them from implementing immediate upgrades or expansion of their facilities, hence, their facilities could turn decrepit in time and these trigger the recurring power service outages.
Tulfo recommended that the ERC should better have a system and must enforce expeditious way of evaluating and approving regulatory filings – primarily those on capex and power supply agreements (PSAs) being lodged by the distribution utilities.
“If the application is not qualified, you can just deny it promptly. Don’t make it too difficult for the applicant anymore – if it’s not allowable, then you can disapprove it. Or if they lack documents, then require them to submit these, just don’t let them wait for nine years,” he stressed.
ERC Commissioner Catherine P. Maceda acknowledged that “in the past four years, the Commission has been reviewing a number of backlogs borne out of years of applications with the Commission.”
She qualified “we admit that there are backlogs and we are under strict guidance from our new Chairperson right now to make sure that all these applications be made current – it’s a tall order but we’re trying our best to achieve that objective.”
ERC Chairperson Monalisa C. Dimalanta similarly admitted that the regulatory body is currently swamped with more than 600 pending applications that are needing prompt action within the timeframe of 270 days set forth under the Energy Virtual One-Stop Shop (EVOSS) platform of Republic Act 11234.
“The pending cases that we would need to catch up on and we will really work hard to resolve them – that’s the bulk of the applications that preceded the EVOSS Law, and so far based on our data, we currently have 630 applications filed as of this year – some of these were really old cases,” the ERC chief emphasized.
Dimalanta explained that “for capex application, that is included under the EVOSS Law – so from the time that the law became effective, the period allowed for capex application is 270 calendar days. So that’s what we’ve been applying since the EVOSS became effective.”
She further noted “it’s not a case that we’re making it difficult for the applicants, but we also need to be diligent in approving the applications, because the corresponding charges will eventually be passed on to the consumers.”
Dimalanta added “we just want to make sure that the expenses are prudently incurred and these were done appropriately by the ECs or distribution utilities concerned.”
