To attract more companies to engage in the generation of electricity in the country, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Tuesday urged corporate regulators to lift the public offering requirement provision in the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 or the EPIRA law.
“The initial purpose of the public offering requirement for generation companies in the EPIRA has been rendered irrelevant given all the developments in the electric power sector,” said Gatchalian, head of the Senate energy committee.
“If we were to encourage more investments in generation to meet our demand needs in the next 20 years, it is crucial to eliminate this additional barrier to entry,” He added.
In removing this additional requirement or barrier to entry, Gatchalian said that the next 20 years will require an additional capacity of 71,817 megawatt (MW) installed capacity by 2040.
The lawmaker added that 9,508MW or 13.24% of the additional total installed capacity will come from renewable energy capacity to meet the 1% renewable portfolio standard requirement under the Renewable Energy Act of 2008.
In order to promote competition and encourage market development, the he cited the need to have to relax some policies such as the public listing which proved to be burdensome to generation companies especially to small renewable energy (RE) gencos that have difficulty complying with the rules
Gatchalian said if there are more companies which can supply electricity, the country can be assured of steady energy supply
In filing Senate Bill No. 2217, Gatchalian said Section 43(T) of Republic Act No. 9136, otherwise known as the EPIRA Act no longer serves its purpose.
