The Department of Energy (DOE) is considering filing charges of economic sabotage against power plants and gathering evidence on those that violated a policy that bans them from conducting preventive maintenance from April to June, when demand for electricity is high.
“If you don’t follow the policy of the Department of Energy, we are studying if this is a crime tantamount to economic sabotage,” Energy Undersecretary Wimpy Fuentebella said Wednesday in a televised briefing about power outages that hit Luzon this week.
"Our lead lawyers in the Department of Energy are exploring that, and we are in the process of gathering pieces of evidence," he added.
It was unlikely, however, that power plants colluded to cause a shortage in the supply of electricity because the government has set a fixed price on power, he said.
Fuentebella also said the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) failed to tap enough contractors to ensure that electricity reserves were sufficient in case power plants go offline.
This regulatory reserve should be 4 percent of the power demand, and a separate contingency reserve equal to the capacity of the largest power plant in the area—about 600 megawatts in Luzon–should be available, he said.
“Were all these contracted? No,” Fuentabella said in Filipino.
“We want compliance. But if noncompliance continues, we cannot do anything, but impose the discipline that is necessary because at the end of the day, consumers are suffering…. We’re after compliance and not penalties. But if you force our hand, we will pursue these cases," he said.
Energy officials said the high heat index raised demand for power this week. Maintenance work and unscheduled shutdowns at key power plants in Luzon as well as low gas pressure from Malampaya also aggravated the power supply problems.
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has ordered 17 power generation companies to explain the unplanned outages that breached the maximum allowable unplanned outage days per year.
“We are strictly monitoring and reviewing the weekly reports being submitted by the generation companies in compliance with our directive pertaining to the reliability performance indices and equivalent outage days per year of generating units," ERC chairperson Agnes Devanadera said in a statement Wednesday.
"Based on the examination of our technical group, there are gencos that have breached the maximum allowable unplanned outage days as of April 2021”, Devanadera said.
On Wednesday, the NGCP lifted the alert level warnings in parts of Luzon, saying demand for power had declined.
Both the red and yellow alerts, supposed to be in place until the evening, were lifted by 3:21 p.m. due to improving supply conditions, the NGCP said in an advisory.
Earlier, the NGCP said consumers should expect rotational power outages due to supply problems.
Average estimated prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) soared to as high as P10.90 per kilowatt-hour due to the red alert on the Luzon grid since Monday.
The Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP), which operates the WESM, said average prices reached P10.90 per kWh on Monday and P6.34 per kWh on Tuesday.
"Those are the average prices for Monday and Tuesday. Those are estimates for settlement. The market prices will only affect a portion of the energy bought in the spot market. It does not apply to all
demand requirements of consumers," IEMOP chief operating officer
Robinson Descanzo said.
For example, Manila Electric Co. sourced only about 7 percent of its power requirements from the WESM in May.
The Department of Energy said the secondary price cap is now in effect at the WESM, which allows the market operator to cap the prices in the market at P6.245 per kWh to protect consumers from possible price spikes.
Grid operator NGCP raised the red alert status starting Monday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. due to insufficient generating capacity.
NGCP also announced a red alert from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Wednesday.
NGCP also placed the Luzon grid on yellow alert or thin reserves from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 12 midnight Wednesday.
In the House, Quezon City Rep. Precious Hipolito Castelo called for a congressional probe into the rotational brownouts that hit Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon.
She said brownouts are happening “despite the assurance of the Department of Energy during the hearing of the Joint Congressional Power Commission last April that it does not see any ‘demand-driven energy shortage’ during the summer season.”
Castelo added that a sufficient electricity supply “is all the more important now that the country is continuously implementing the national rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, which require refrigeration at varying temperatures.”
She pointed out that the ongoing power interruptions also affect millions of students and teachers who conduct their classes online.
“Considering that the country is still in the summer season and parts of Metro Manila and Luzon still log high temperatures daily, rotational brownouts will just worsen the inconvenience brought about by heat and may even cause potential health risks such as heat stroke,” Castelo said.
She suggested that the committee on energy chaired by Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo look into the rotational brownouts.
Energy consumers, led by Power for People Coalition (P4P), on Wednesday slammed generation companies for failing to supply sufficient electricity as the country suffers from extremely high summer temperatures.
“As we experience the first red alert in Luzon since June 2019, we remember the bill shock, the high price we pay for electricity, and the constant warnings we have given about the generation companies who keep getting off the hook despite the unreliability of their power plants. Consumers are not getting our money’s worth from our electricity sector,” said Gerry Arances, a P4P convenor.
“There’s no going around the fact that companies who keep inconveniencing consumers this way need to be penalized. The Department of Energy (DOE) itself already noted that these repeated disruptions reek of anti-competitive behavior and economic sabotage.
Our energy regulators in DOE, ERC, oversight committees in Congress, and others must not take their sweet time in holding power companies accountable," Arances said.
P4P warned that consumers would keep watch lest additional costs triggered by these unexpected shutdowns are passed on to ordinary Filipinos when they are not even receiving the proper electricity services promised to them.
