ERC eyes full utility rate resets in 4 years

Newly appointed Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Chairperson and CEO Francis Saturnino Juan is targeting the completion of all private utility rate resets within his four-year term, as he moves to revise existing rules and streamline procedures.

“If my term is four years, in four years we will finish that,” Juan said in an interview with reporters on Thursday.

Juan said the rate reset delays—none completed in over a decade—were rooted in procedural hurdles under the current performance-based regulation (PBR) framework.

“I will propose one of the items in the first commission meeting that I will preside over, proposed revisions into the rules such as the rate setting transmission wheeling rates (RTWR),” he said.

“I am already writing the revisions so that we can begin the reset of private distribution utilities, which in more than 10 years, not a single one has been completed.”

The proposed changes, which will undergo public consultations, aim to cut down on the lengthy regulatory process.

“First, one of the things that probably needs to be streamlined is the process itself. We adopted the concept of PBR from other jurisdictions, and their treatment of the conversation between the regulator and the regulated entity is different,” Juan explained.

“There are so many parts of the process we adopted that are structured for this kind of approach.”

Juan noted that under current rules, the ERC functions more like a court, requiring extensive documentation and a drawn-out hearing process. “In our case, we follow more of a hearing process, where the ERC acts like a judge,” he said.

He is proposing the removal of the draft determination stage, which is typically followed by another round of public consultations before a final decision

“What I’m thinking is that we also remove the draft determination stage, followed again by public consultation and then a final decision, because this setup we borrowed from another jurisdiction where the regulator’s decision is discussed and negotiated as part of a regulatory compact,” he said.

Utilities, he said, will still have the option to seek reconsideration.