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We know about prepaid credits on mobile phone, and there are also prepaid internet credits as well as prepaid cable TV service… soon, there will also be prepaid electricity. It’s called the prepaid retail electric service (PRES), a prepaid metering scheme for electricity whose governing rules has been approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission last week. This scheme is expected to help residential customers in managing their consumption of electricity.

ERC executive director Saturnino Juan made the announcement last week and said that they will officially issue the rules soon.

The PRES is a prepaid metering system designed to allow a residential customer to avail of an electric service by purchasing credit or load and then use electricity until such time his prepaid load is exhausted.

Several distribution utilities have already been pilot-testing the scheme, according to Juan, this includes the Aboitiz group in Subic and another company in Leyte.

A prepaid metering system in Singapore allows a consumer to buy additional electricity load from another supplier even while using power from another source, Juan said that the ERC is planning to implement a system that is similar to that. “You can add to the stock and you can look for other suppliers, so once you have exhausted your load, the next supplier will continue to supply to you and so there will be no interruption. We’re looking at that system, although it is more advance,” he said.

Juan also cautioned that DU’s (distribution utilities) are not allowed to collect from their customers the so-called “prepaid meter deposits,” consumer should not be made to advance the cost of or to purchase the prepaid meter, and that the power rates should remain the same.

Availment of the PRES is on a voluntary basis and is subject to the availability of a distribution utility’s prepaid electric infrastructure.