Senate, House to probe blackouts

MANILA, Philippines — Lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the unexpected blackouts that hit many parts of Luzon last week despite assurance from the Department of Energy (DOE) of ample electricity supply throughout the dry season.

“Definitely, heads must roll this time. We owe it to the power consumers to give them accurate information on the power situation in the country. It seems the DOE has overestimated the available electricity capacity,” Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said.

He is also urging the executive department to hold accountable officials who failed to act swiftly to address the problem.

At the House of Representatives, the committee on Metro Manila development is also launching an inquiry into last week’s power outages.

“We would like to find out if there is a power crisis. And if there is one, we need to know what we can do about it. We need to discuss solutions to ease the burden on the public who will bear the brunt of this,” Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo, who heads the committee, said yesterday.

Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate committee on energy, made the call in the wake of yellow and red alert warnings issued by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) for the Luzon grid in the past week.

“The brownouts felt by our constituents in Luzon these past few days is totally unacceptable,” Gatchalian said.

Citing a report from the NGCP, Gatchalian said at least seven provinces along with 40 cities and towns have so far been affected by the rotating blackouts resulting from forced and unplanned outages of five generators in Luzon.

Comparing the DOE forecast with the NGCP projections, Gatchalian said the projected available capacity of DOE is way above the level of the projected capacity of the NGCP.

He pointed out that on April 11, the DOE projected at least 1,085 megawatts (MW) gross reserve as against NGCP’s estimate of 236 MW.

The DOE, he said, made another inaccurate forecast on April 12.

Castelo, for his part, said he received information that the Luzon power grid “struggles to keep up high demand of electricity during the summer months, causing supply issues and prompting Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and other distributors to implement rotational brownouts.”

Reps. Mikee Romero of party-list group 1-Pacman and Carlos Roman Uybarreta of 1-CARE have called for a government-led electricity conservation campaign.

Romero said turning off unnecessary lights and adjusting the temperature setting of air-conditioners in thousands of national and local government offices could mean significant savings in terms of power and taxpayers’ money.

“If the government will lead the campaign, I am sure the private sector will willingly follow and adopt similar energy-saving measures,” he said.

According to leftist party-list group Bayan Muna, this week’s sudden maintenance shutdowns by five power plants are “suspiciously similar to the 2013 closures when industry players colluded to jack up prices.”

“These happened almost six years ago and the Supreme Court acted on our petition to stop the huge electricity rate increase by issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO),” the group said.

Rep. Carlos Zarate said in 2017, there were similar maintenance closures by 20 generators that resulted in a rate increase.

“We filed Resolution No. 928 to investigate this suspicious occurrence but the committee on energy just sat on it. We cannot have a repeat of 2013 and 2017,” he said. –  Danessa Rivera