I’ve been gone a week and catching up.
I had a nice note from Manny Macatangay whom many of the energy policy older-timers in the sector will remember as being associated with CRC in Ortigas in the early 90’s (UAP was a gleam in their eyes at that time). He’s now with Economists, Incorporated in Emeryville, CA and has done great things since leaving our midst. Here’s his recent bio and contact information if you want to catch up with him yourself.
An undisclosed Reuters’ source in Manila has some interesting insights into Mirant’s latest activities.
I spoke a bit yesterday about the end of Meralco monopoly on Mamutong at the prompting of Manuel Quezon III.
On this point - I have no horse in this race. I have colleagues on both the Government side and the Meralco side. To a great degree, this is a zero sum game between Meralco customers and Napocor customers. To some extent there is a win-win solution on economic dispatch but I believe that is minor.
The real issue here, I believe, is allocation of capacity cost obligations and congestion cost obligations between the two customer groups.
The issues are so far ranging that deciding this on the basis of “equity” is somewhat of a slippery slope. It will depend on your perspecitve and somewhat on how you make intertemporal choices.
