While fast tracking the sale of its generation plant (1200 MW Sual Coal Fired Power, 700 MW Pagbilao Coal Fired Power Plant, and some portion of 1200 MW Ilijan CCGT) assets, Mirant Philippines is now intending to still pursue their electricity related business in the Philippines, now, as a part of the Supply Sector.

In the latest list of Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) participants, https://www.wesm.ph/list.of.COP.participants/, Mirant is listed as an applicant for Supplier Category.

Once approved, Mirant will then be a competitor of GN Power, who are already a WESM participant, and hopefully, by MERALCO supply group, on the retail competition for the supply of power.

EPIRA or RA 9136 created the supply sector, a deregulated entity that purchases bulk power in the electricity market and sell it, through retail competition, to the end users. Before EPIRA, electricity supply sector was part of the distribution sector, which was then regulated and a monopoly business. EPIRA splits the function of distribution sector into sole distribution, whose function is only to build distribution lines, similar to the function of TRANSCO; and the supply sector.

This is a very drastic shift of the nature of business for Mirant. Moreover, the competition in the supply sector might be tight as compared to generation sector, where they have already secured a supply contract with NPC for a guaranteed energy generation. Maybe the good thing about making business in the supply sector is that the company doesn’t have to invest more for physical generation assets, but more on capital for purchasing power.