The Energy Regulatory Commission approved the expansion of the interruptible load program to ease the power shortage in the dry months, an official said Wednesday.
ERC executive director Francis Saturnino Juan told reporters the original ILP design covered only the captive customers, or those that are directly served by distribution utilities like Manila Electric Co.
The ILP encourages large power users to use their generating sets and pull out from the grid to reduce demand. Around 755 MW of capacity has been committed from ILP participants to date.
“We collaborated with various stakeholders to include contestable customers, customers directly-connected to the grid and locators in the economic zones with self-generating facilities,” Juan said.
“The proposed amendments to the ILP rules–to include more participants–were approved by the commission,” Juan said.
He said deliberations had been completed and the final resolution on the rules would soon be released.
“The ERC is working on the promulgation right now. Before effectivity, it has to be published before implementation,” Juan said
The amended rules would establish the process for the ILP program not only for the distribution utilities but also for the directly-connected customers of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.
Prospective customers may come from contestable customers who already have an existing contract with so-called retail electricity suppliers and the directly connected customers of NGCP.
ERC earlier said there was a need to amend certain provisions of the current ILP rules to be able to allow additional participants and contestable customers in the ILP and provide a transparent and reasonable recovery of the associated cost.
“We are looking at amending the existing ILP rules to be able to allow contestable and directly-connected customers to participate in the ILP. Their participation will increase the ILP capacity currently enrolled in the program and help alleviate any supply deficit we may have in the future,” Juan said earlier.
The rules also spelled out the billing and compensation for de-loading of the ILP participants from the grid.
“The deloading compensation shall be computed multiplying the deloaded kWh less registered kWh in the meter, if any, during the periods when the distribution utility/National Grid requests a participating customer to deload, multiplied by the incremental de-loading cost per kWh,” the amended rules earlier said.