DOE eyes raps vs power industry players over outages

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Energy (DOE) is building up cases against energy industry players that violated rules on plant maintenance schedules and contracting of supply as the Luzon power grid reels from a third straight day of severe deficiency.

Addressing yesterday’s Laging Handa briefing, Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said: “The instruction of Secretary (Alfonso) Cusi is our lawyers in the DOE are exploring (the filing of charges). We are in the process of gathering pieces of evidence (on violations made by energy players).”

Fuentebella said DOE has sought the help of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in building up the cases.

Based on a circular issued last year, only hydropower generators are allowed to conduct annual preventive maintenance in the second quarter of the year coinciding with the summer season.

Generators are required to submit their planned outage schedules to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), which will then submit the Grid Operating and Maintenance Program (GOMP) to the DOE.

Apart from compliance with the preventive maintenance scheduling, the DOE will also verify if enough capacity was contracted to prevent outages in the power grid.

Also, the ERC is directing erring generating companies (gencos) to explain breach of maximum allowable unplanned outage days per year.

“We are strictly monitoring and reviewing the weekly reports being submitted by the gencos in compliance with our directive pertaining to the Reliability Performance Indices and Equivalent Outage Days Per Year of Generating Units. Based on the examination of our technical group, there are gencos that have breached the maximum allowable unplanned outage days as of April 2021,” ERC chairperson and CEO Agnes Devanadera said.

In November last year, the ERC issued a resolution which sets forth the maximum or cap for annual unplanned outages per generating plant technology. This became effective on Jan. 3 this year.

Devanadera explained that these rules were put in place to set “the reliability performance benchmark per technology for all generating units in order to lessen the outages and ensure a reliable power supply and rate.”

‘Penalize gencos’

In a statement, consumer groups like the Power for People Coalition (P4P) want gencos penalized for failure to supply energy during this peak quarter.

“We hope these (red) alerts would spur our regulators into making decisive measures to shield consumers from inconveniences like this moving forward. Penalties for irresponsible gencos would be a start,” P4P convenor Gerry Arances said.

Consumer group Kuryente.Org (KO) is demanding action and accountability from government agencies and condemned the rotational brownouts as a “huge disservice” to the Filipino consumer.

“We hope DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi would give the same energy he gave as the secretary of PDP Laban to address this annual energy crisis,” KO national coordinator Nic Satur Jr. said.