Telecom giant Globe is batting for an accelerated lowering of the Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA) consumption threshold in the electricity sector from the current 500 kilowatts to 10 to 99 kw so small businesses and enterprises can directly choose their electricity suppliers.

RCOA is a policy prescription of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) that bestows "power of choice" to consumers when it comes to their preferred retail electricity suppliers (RES). Consumers can also negotiate for the cost and volume that will fit their budget as well as on the technology that will supply their power requirements, including those from renewable energy (RE) sources.

Once power retail competition reaches marginal level of businesses and eventually households, the telco companies could also thrive as viable partners of the electricity service providers – because by then, the consumers can already purchase electricity even via their phones or digital apps, like what is happening in other electricity markets.

To lower the RCOA threshold, the Ayala-led telco company is seeking amendments in the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the EPIRA, but experts in the energy sector noted that is no longer needed, because that could already be aptly covered by the regulatory powers and authoritative declaration of the Energy Regulatory Commission – especially so since voluntary participation of customers in RCOA has already been backed by legal jurisprudence in recent Supreme Court decisions.

In October 2020, the ERC announced that it is targeting to bring down the RCOA threshold to 10-99 kilowatts by January 26, 2023 but that timeline is being thrown in the air. Even the reduction to 100-499 kW contestability threshold, which is targeted this year, has already been experiencing delays.

According to Globe, it “hopes to see amendments to the IRR that will accelerate the timeline for lowering the threshold earlier than 2023, even on a voluntary basis, so that buildings and other infrastructure consuming between 10 and 99 kWh would be granted the ability to choose their preferred energy producer, in this case, a producer of renewable energy.”

The company qualified “such adjustments will also give other major enterprises and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) the option to shift to clean energy sources for their infrastructure and operations,” emphasizing that based on the data of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the MSMEs account for 99.51-percent of businesses in the country.

Yoly Crisanto, chief sustainability officer and senior vice president for Corporate Communications of Globe, asserted “this will help reduce the country’s carbon footprint in the hope of achieving our decarbonization targets in 2030.”

Further, the telco company has called for the "commercial availability" of renewable energy infrastructure in Mindanao to enable massive adoption of clean power sources across the country.

The firm pointed out “this will allow Globe to tap clean power sources in powering its cell sites and other low-energy utilization infrastructure in more cities and municipalities.”

In the business terrain of the power sector, the infrastructure that will enable the massive-scale integration of RE in Mindanao will be the commercial operation of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the area which is targeted this year.

RE capacities have priority dispatch in the WESM and the spot market will also subsequently integrate an RE market which is seen as an alternative marketplace for RE-generated capacities, because trading of RE certificates will eventually be enabled by the spot market.

“If more enterprises are able to adopt renewables for their operations, the business sector can potentially contribute more to reducing our carbon emissions and help the environment,” Crisanto stressed.

The Ayala telco firm expounded it “hopes the government would enhance incentives it offers for clean energy use, such as tax exemptions, to entice more companies to take on this shift.”