The guidelines issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission for the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) will allow electricity end-users to contribute to the country’s push to grow renewable energy capacity and usage by giving consumers the option to choose RE as their source of electricity.
The ERC recently promulgated the GEOP regulatory framework which sets the technical and interconnection standards and wheeling fees of RE generating facilities.
The GEOP is a mechanism under the RE Act of 2008 that according to ERC chairperson Agnes Devanadera “empowers electricity consumers by giving them the option to choose renewable energy as their source of electricity, which is clean and environment friendly.”
The rules identified two types of end users who may qualify to avail of the GEOP which are all end users with a monthly average peak demand of 100 kilowatts and above for the past 12 months, and an end user that has been in operation for less than 12 months upon effectivity of GEOP rules.
The ERC was mandated by the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the RE Act of 2008 to issue the necessary regulatory framework to operationalize the GEOP in order to allow stakeholders in the electric power industry to contribute to the growth of the RE industry of the country. It took them more than a decade but now that the GEOP is finally operational, consumers have the power to choose their energy sources and hopefully help in accelerating the country’s shift to renewable energy as we try to do our part to hopefully lower electricity costs while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change.
The mechanism that will allow electricity end users to choose their energy sources may not reduce prices immediately but the long term impact can be significant, especially if it contributes to the transformation of the power industry into one that is more sustainable and less damaging to the environment and our health. Now that it is available, it is up to the consumers to make it work.*
