The implementation of the net metering program should now be faster since the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has issued the amended rules for this program, ERC chairperson Francis Saturnino Juan said.

“We have already identified the improvements in our rules, like mandating only the minimum, the barest minimum of requirements. So, the distribution utility should only prescribe very limited, three or four requirements, to make it easier,” he said in an interview after the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP) forum in Makati City on Sept. 11, 2025.

The ERC, in a resolution issued on Aug. 27, announced new guidelines that streamline net metering processes to make it easier for qualified end-users (QEs) to adopt the system.

Among the amendments are the banking and rollover of net metering credits towards a QE’s electricity usage, both for the current and future billings, for distribution utilities to publish on their websites detailed information of their own programs, and revision of Sec. 19 of the rules that makes it voluntary instead of the mandatory installation of Renewable Energy Certificate (REC).

The ERC, however, has not issued a certificate of compliance, and Juan said they would discuss this in their next meeting.

Juan said there should also be uniform requirements among DUs, noting that this is one of the factors why net metering process is too tedious.

“Once we are able to discuss and deliberate on these proposed revisions, we will actually roll them out and then have an IEC (information, education, and communication campaign) so that throughout the Philippines, throughout the country, our distribution utilities would know that they should be already processing their net metering applications in the shortest possible time,” he said.

“Take note, even without the actual issuance of the COC by ERC, these net metering agreements between the DU and the net metering customer, they can already be implemented right away.”