Two sessions of public consultations were organized on 9 and 11 December 2020 by the Department of Energy (DOE) for the market manuals that will supplement the Renewable Energy (RE) Market Rules approved by the DOE in December last year. The activities were held via Zoom videoconferencing and attended by around 500 representives from different RE Associations, Government Agencies, Distribution Utilities, Generating Companies, Retail Electricity Suppliers, and other RE Market Participants.
The DOE is mandated by the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (Republic Act 91513) to establish the RE Market for the trading of Renewable Energy Certificates or “RECs”, equivalent to an amount of power generated from renewable energy resources is made.
The Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC), who currently takes on the functions of the RE Registrar and governing body of the RE Market, submitted its proposal for the adoption of four market manuals that will provide the processes and guidelines in implementing the RE Market. These include: the RE Market Registration, Allocation of RECs corresponding to the Generation of RE Plants under the Feed-in-Tariff System, Investigation Procedures and Penalty, and Dispute Resolution. The procedures and guidelines contained in these proposed market manuals are aligned with the DOE-approved REM Rules.
“The implementation of the nationwide community quarantine posed significant impact most especially in the RE market registration, the conduct of training and IECs, and also in other activities and requirements that would have allowed us to commercially operate the RE market on our original target of June this year”, said DOE Undersecretary Emmanuel P. Juaneza in his opening remarks during the first session of the public consultations.
Last August, the DOE announced the re-calibration of the commercial operations of the RE market from its original timeline of June 2020 to its new target of June 2021. To this end, PEMC, in coordination with the DOE, lined up a number of activities to capacitate the stakeholders on their participation in the RE Market including information and education campaigns, trial operations, additional batches of online trainings and registration drives.
“Registration is ongoing for the RE Market since February this year and I would like to encourage you to register in the REM for us to achieve 100 percent participant registration by April 2021”, DOE Assistant Secretary Robert B. Uy said in his closing remarks.
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