MANILA, Philippines, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Even before the Philippines' Electric Power Industry Reform Act takes effect, industries with high-load factors will get to choose their power supplier.
The Business Mirror reported Thursday that the decision follows the Energy Regulatory Commission posting the third draft of the Rules for the Power Supply Option Program. ERC is soliciting final comments before Jan. 15, 2010, on the third draft rules from the industry participants for effectively implementing the PSOP. PSOP is designed to implement the government's policy of privatizing the country's electricity generation facilities
After the final draft is approved the regulations will implement PSOP 90 days after the Calaca National Power Corp. (Napocor) generation assets operations are transferred to private power companies or at least 70 percent of Napocor's total generating assets in the Luzon and Visayas grids are privatized, whichever occurs first.
The PSOP is a voluntary program that will include only eligible suppliers and eligible customers as defined in the rules and will be implemented only in Luzon and as a transitional program will end once the government's Retail Competition and Open Access regime is established.
