A proposal to allow the government to facilitate the competitive selection process for power supply agreements to ensure fairness and avoid power shortages was filed in the Senate.

Proponents of the bill sought to fine-tune the Electric Power Industry Reform Act to allow the changes.

For example, the bidding process can be undertaken by the government. Right now under the CSP regime, the distribution utilities are the ones doing the auction while the government is completely hands-off.

The concept of the measure is that the CSP will be fair especially if the government will facilitate, whether electronic or physical bids.

Some power distributors, of course, will buy from their affiliates.

DoE to have a role

The Department of Energy will be mandated to safeguard the CSP policy to ensure fairness.

Such revisions may need a new law or an amendment to EPIRA.

Last August, the DoE said it will specify the roles of the Energy Regulatory Commission in the conduct of CSP for new PSAs of power distributors.

The CSP is an auction exercise carried out by private distribution utilities and electric cooperatives before entering into new PSAs with generation companies.

The CSP was originally instituted by the DoE in 2018 through Department Circular 2018-02-0003 entitled "Adopting and Prescribing the Policy for the Competitive Selection Process in the Procurement by the Distribution Utilities of Power Supply Agreement for the Captive Market."