"We should put an end to NGCP’s incompetence."
"We should put an end to NGCP’s incompetence."
The congressional hearings on the recent brownouts in Luzon offer a clear view on why the shortcomings of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines led to this crisis.
During a virtual hearing by the Joint Congressional Energy Commission, NGCP Special Counsel for Legal and Regulatory Affairs Ronald Concepcion said they can only procure power when there is sufficient supply from the generation companies.
That is not a convincing argument as it exposes why the NGCP did not adequately prepare for the situation. This happened despite the circulars released by the Department of Energy (DOE) aimed at preventing these scenarios.
The DOE previously released Department Circular DC2019-12-0018, among which the salient provisions include that the NGCP must complete the testing of all power plants no later than March 26, 2020 and submit the results to the DOE and Energy Regulatory Commission (Section 3.3) and that it should test all generating facilities and report the results to the DOE and ERC (Section 3.4)
Based on these provisions, the NGCP should be perfectly aware of what specific power plants and generation companies need improvement given that it is required to submit all these reports to the regulators.
But despite these, NGCP continues to wash its hands of the issue and insists the blame is not on them, even portraying itself as helpless in light of the generation companies supposedly failing to produce electricity. Given the data it has, it should have found ways to procure power in situations wherein the supply is low.
The DOE also released Department Circular DC2020-02-0004, and its salient provisions include having all generating companies submit 3-year planned outage schedules to the NGCP for the Grid Operating Program (Section 3.1), the NGCP should come up with an optimal generation and transmission outage schedule that will serve as basis for the Grid Operating and Maintenance Program (Section 3.2), and the NGCP should submit the GOMP to the DOE for approval in the last day of October for each year (Section 3.3)
Based on this circular, the NGCP should be aware of when power outages should take place. Ideally, knowing when they take place is an opportunity to procure the adequate amount of power in case outages will take place.
The NGCP blaming generation companies as to why they failed to produce power, which led to the brownouts in Luzon, hides the fact that it’s their obligation to be proactive in dealing with these situations. If they had done so, then the brownouts in Luzon may not have even happened in the first place.
Given these facts, it is right for government leaders to express their frustration to the NGCP.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, called for the ERC to sanction NGCP over its failure to get the adequate amount of reserves. These remarks were made during the Senate hearing on the issue.
During the said hearing, the DOE even called for a review of the franchise given to NGCP over their compliance issues.
The NGCP needs to step up and hold itself accountable through fully complying with the DOE circulars.
Complying with them includes using the data they have in order to prepare themselves for emergency situations. This is a step forward it can take to ensure there will no longer be brownouts in the Philippines.
Should it continue to fail in its duties, then regulators should impose penalties on NGCP, whether it be through a hefty civil penalty or a revocation of its franchise.
Perhaps the latter option could put an end to NGCP’s incompetence as it will provide an opportunity for other entities that are capable to step in.
