Many (most? all maybe?) state utility regulatory Commissions in the U.S. have found the need to establish and fund an office to specifically focus on and professionally represent the interests of electricity consumers as an official intervenor in electricity rate regulatory proceedings.
California has legislatively established the Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) as a Division of the California Public Utilities Commission with considerable discovery rights and access to confidential information of the regulated utilities.
EmPower and NASECORE are talking about consumer ownership in Meralco. But as we’ve watched and read about the GSIS maneuverings in the Meralco Board room, without the votes even Board members have difficulty gaining certain information – how much less mere stockholders.
The regulatory forum may be the more proper – and stronger – arena to monitor and control regulated monopolies of public services. It may be time to establish an Office of Ratepayer Advocate either within or outside of the ERC, professionally staffed with engineers, accountants, and lawyers – working in coordination at times, perhaps, with other independent consumer interest groups such as EmPower and NASECORE and even PhilRECA – to more effectively utilize the rate regulatory structures we already have in place.
Funding should (or could) be through a set-aside in electricity tariffs we all pay. We’ll effectively pay for our own professional intervenors to represent and advocate for us. That’s as it should be.
3 Comments
i think this is the purpose of Grid Management Committee (GMC)and Distribution Management Committee (DMC). As far as i know, Nasecore is represented in the DMC. So are other industry stakeholders such as meralco, transco, ec’s and du’s.
hrt – I agree the GMC and DMC are designed to provide input from a consumer perspective. And I believe these Committees are sometimes active in PubCons and providing input on rule-makings. But consumer representatives are a minority on these committees, are they not? So the Committee itself, when it presents advisory input on policy issues, could squelch the consumer’s perspective or at least mitigate that perspective in deference to other interests on those Committees. And I’m not aware they’ve ever participated in a rate proceeding (though I could be wrong on that).
An entity that is entitled to be a full-blown intervenor in a rate case, focused solely on consumer issues, can be a powerful consumer lever before the ERC if adequately financed so that they can bring to the proceedings expertise equivalent to that of the utilities. Intervenors are always at an disadvantage in a rate proceeding – the utility holds many of the the cards (but not all).
Notwithstanding the biased media that you have read, stockholders have no problems getting info on meralco. It is surprising that the empty posturings of a govt crony seemed to have fooled a lot of people.
Consumers like yours truly can buy meralco stocks – it is openly traded in the market. If that is not consumer ownership, I will never know what it is.
What some people dont realize is that the govt owns NPC, and NPC is in BILLIONS of dollars in debt. The 12% eVAT on power sales is whats keeping NPC in the black.
Heaven forbid should the same thing happen to Meralco. And to be led by a person whose penchant for buying paintings with pensioner’s money is a sure invitation to disaster