Consumer group National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms (Nasecore) has asked the Department of Energy (DOE) to scrap and replace the current rules on the competitive selection process (CSP) to further bring down costs.

In a 3 June letter to acting Energy Secretary Sharon Garin, Nasecore said the DOE’s existing circular on CSP “clearly failed to uphold its core objectives of transparency, fair competition, and least-cost power supply procurement.”

Nasecore also furnished copies of the three-page letter to President Marcos, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Senate President Francis Chiz Escudero, and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.

The group said it continued to monitor rates and power supply deals by distribution utilities and found that “the CSP mechanism has not delivered meaningful market competition.”

“On the contrary, it has largely preserved the dominance of incumbent and affiliated generation companies, especially in the franchise area of Meralco (Manila Electric Co). No new independent or reliable power suppliers have been introduced into Meralco’s generation mix in the past decade,” Nasecore told Garin.

Nasecore cited an Energy Regulatory Commission case—2024-027 RC—on 26 November 2024, that approved a PSA rate of P5.7816 per kilowatt-hour with an additional 69 centavos in VAT and 25 centavos in line rental, bringing the total to P6.7254 per kWh.

In contrast, the ERC approved only P4.0459 per kWh in case numbers 2019-083 RC and 2019-081 RC, both dated 10 December 2019.

The group also criticized the continued award of PSAs by distribution utilities to their affiliates, which it said discourages independent competitors.

As such, the group proposed a “comprehensive overhaul” of the CSP circular, starting with a DOE-led, multi-stakeholder review, and called on the department to conduct a full audit of utilities’ PSAs from 2019 to 2024 to assess compliance with CSP rules and procurement guidelines.