Sen. Gatchalian urges support on Competitive Energy Procurement

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LAOAG CITY, April 25 (PIA) – As the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian laid down the intention of the legislators on a reasonable power procurement through the Competitive Selection Process (CSP).

This is the highlight in the training-workshop named as Continuing Regulatory Education for Stakeholders (CREST) for North Luzon last April 20-21 at the Fort Ilocandia Resort and Hotel by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

“One of the most important legislations that we are currently discussing in the Senate Committee on Energy is the Competitive Selection Process,” he said as he introduces it to North Luzon stakeholders and media practitioners.

ERC defined the CSP as “the process wherein a Generation Company is selected through transparent and competitive bidding undertaken by the distribution utilities (DU) to secure supply of electricity at the least cost.”

This is in clear support of Sen. Gatchalian’s advocacy of bringing down power rates for local energy consumers.

However, the CSP was bombarded with issues and questions due to lack of legislative basis.   “Many issues came out.

We’re talking to more than 120 DUs, several power plants, and several stakeholders. But it is important for the committee to look at these issues because these were the basis of our proposal to the energy committee to institutionalize the CSP.”

The proposal mentioned is the Senate Bill 1308 or “An Act Institutionalizing Reforms in the Procurement by Distribution Utilities of Supply for the Captive Market. Two of its salient features include the order of DUs to submit Power Supply Procurement Management and all information to CSP be made available through the online portal.

“I’m encouraging all of you to really look at this bill closely and analyze its feature. This will implement massive reforms on how we purchase power,” he said as he encourages the participants to support the bill.   He also added that this shall also give benefits to generation companies for a fair treatment in the procurement of power supply. (Ma. Joreina Therese A. Blanco- JNPD/MJTAB PIA-1, Ilocos Norte)

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