The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has instituted new market share limits (MSLs), in terms of capacity installations, that the country’s power generation companies (GenCos) must comply with this year in accordance with the prescriptions of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.
On a nationwide scale, the regulatory body enforced that the capacity limit a GenCo must have shall be 5,855.584 megawatts, which is equivalent to 25-percent of the country’s total power installed capacity – which had been reckoned at 23,422.338MW this year.
Based on figures released by the ERC, there was just very slight climb in the total number of megawatt-capacity installations nationwide, because this was at a level of 23,409.654MW last year or just a mere difference of 13MW.
In the Luzon grid, the ERC-mandated market share cap shall be 4,792.464MW; Visayas grid at 1,014.482MW; and Mindanao grid at 1,219.754 megawatts.
On a per grid basis, the generation companies can only own or have dispatch control over 30-percent of the total megawatts installed within a particular power grid.
In 2020, the prescribed cap on market ownership of GenCos had been placed at 4,813.200MW for Luzon grid; 1,009.967MW for Visayas grid; and 1,199.728MW for Mindanao grid.
The ERC has been adjusting the market share limits for the GenCos every March 15 of each year, based on the mandates of the EPIRA and in line with Resolution No. 26 that was issued by the industry regulator in 2005.
For the 2021 capacity-ownership limits, the ERC emphasized that the prescribed figures “shall remain and shall be strictly enforced and implemented until the next adjustment thereto which maybe on or before the 15th day of March 2022 and every year thereafter or as the need arises.”
As noted, the biggest power producer in the country has more than 4,000MW of capacity ownership and control; and that still falls below the decreed market share end point of the ERC.
The market share limitation is being enforced in the deregulated electricity market to ensure that there would be wider base of players competing and providing services to the consumers.