Taguig City - The Department of Energy (DOE) conducted the first of its series of public consultations on the new Competitive Selection Process (CSP) policy on 13 April 2023.  This policy is intended to streamline the CSP highlighting the responsibilities of the DOE, Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), and National Electrification Administration (NEA) under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) that is adaptable and flexible to the needs of the distribution utilities to ensure efficient, timely and transparent procurement of power supply for the electricity consumers.    

“The DOE is committed to our mandate, vision and mission to improve the quality of life of the Filipinos by formulating and implementing policies and programs to ensure sustainable, stable, secure, sufficient, accessible and reasonably-priced energy,” DOE Undersecretary Rowena Guevara said. She also emphasized that the distribution utilities (DUs), as provided in the EPIRA, are mandated to provide power supply to its captive market at the least cost manner, with due consideration to quality, affordability, sustainability, and reliability.   

 The CSP policy has been crafted in close coordination with the ERC and the NEA to ensure harmony and consistency of the implementation at different stages of the process. 

After the issuance of the policy, the ERC will then issue the implementing guidelines in the conduct of CSP and the evaluation of Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) resulting from CSP of DUs. 

 As stipulated in the policy, the NEA shall advise all electric cooperatives (ECs) on the conduct of CSP one year before the expiration of their PSAs. As necessary, the NEA shall provide assistance to ECs for the timely completion of CSP.  

During the public consultation, the DOE emphasized the expectation from the DUs to ensure a well-prepared Distribution Development Plan (DDP) and the Power Supply Procurement Plan (PSPP) since these will be the references of DOE and NEA in the issuance of the Certificate of Conformity in terms of the contract quantity and cooperation period. 

The policy also empowers the electricity consumers since all the information at the different stages of the CSP shall be posted in the DOE CSP Portal of the DOE website. The consumers will have a better understanding on the basis of the largest component of the electricity bill, which is the generation cost.    

The next schedule of public consultations will be on April 17 and 19, 2023. The draft CSP policy is posted on the DOE website with deadline for comments on 21 April 2023.  

The DOE assures all the stakeholders of the power industry that this policy initiative is geared towards achieving greater accountability and responsibility on the part of the government and the concerned electric power industry participants in serving electricity consumers who pay the cost of the power supply. ###