Thursday, February 5, 2009 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
THE Visayan Electric Company (Veco) recently acquired a new certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
The certificate gives Veco the authority to operate power transmission and distribution systems from Sept. 24, 2005 to Sept. 24, 2030, a report from www.gmanews.tv stated.
Ethel Natera, Veco spokesperson, said the company actually has a CPCN, but it asked for the new certificate so the validity period will coincide with the franchise given by the House of Representatives in September 2005.
She said that after the National Electrification Commission (NEC) granted Veco a franchise, which was good from Dec. 8, 2003 to Dec. 7, 2028, last December 2003, the company applied for a CPCN from the ERC with the same validity period.
The franchise allowed Veco to continue electric, light, and power system operations in the four cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Talisay and Naga, and the four towns of Consolacion, Liloan, Minglanilla and San Fernando.
The passage of Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), however, transferred the exclusive power to grant a franchise from the NEC to Congress.
So in September 2005, Congress gave Veco a new franchise, which is valid until September 2030, prompting the company to request the ERC on Oct. 24, 2008 to order for its CPCN expiration to coincide with its franchise.
The franchise allows Veco to continue electric, light, and power system operations in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Talisay, and the Cebu towns of Consolacion, Liloan, Minglanilla, Naga and San Fernando.
“It’s not that we are operating without a CPCN. We just applied for an amendment to the certificate to coincide with the franchise, to avoid confusion,” Natera said.
In granting the new CPCN, the ERC recognized Veco’s “financial capability to viably operate and sustain a reliable electricity service to its consumers in the cities and municipalities under its franchise area.”
The ERC also took a positive note of the company’s projects designed to improve system efficiency and reliability, particularly the development of a 69-kilovolt backbone system and the purchase of a mobile substation transformer.
Veco, the country’s second biggest power distributor, is partly owned by the Aboitiz Power Corp.
Natera said Veco has yet to receive its hard copy of the CPCN, but the company learned of its granting through a statement posted in the ERC’s official website. (RHM)
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