San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp. (SMGP) said Wednesday its affiliate, South Premiere Power Corp. (SPPC), has been cleared of any violations related to a June 2022 outage at the 1,200-megawatt Ilijan gas power plant.
SMGP, the power generation arm of San Miguel Corp. (SMC), said the clearance from the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) makes a recent show-cause order from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) “outdated and without basis.”
The PEMC is the governing body for the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
The PEMC’s Market Surveillance Committee and its board concluded in March and May 2025, respectively, that SPPC did not breach the WESM’s “must-offer rule,” which requires generators to submit their available capacity to the market.
The review found the plant’s shutdown from June 5 to 25, 2022, was caused by fuel supply constraints that were beyond the company’s control.
Despite the PEMC’s finding, the ERC issued an order on July 24, 2025, directing SPPC to explain why it should not be penalized for allegedly engaging in anti-competitive behavior. The ERC order was based on an earlier August 2022 resolution from the PEMC’s surveillance committee.
The ERC order alleges the plant was on “open breaker status” during the June 2022 period, which coincided with higher spot market prices and supply alerts.
SMGP, which at the time fully owned SPPC but now holds a 33 percent stake, said the outage was due to “sudden and uncontemplated constraints” in its natural gas supply after its pipeline fuel supply ceased.
To prevent similar issues, SMGP, through SPPC, has since facilitated the construction of a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal.
The terminal can receive, store, and process natural gas for up to 2,500 megawatts of power generation, about 15 percent of the Luzon grid’s dependable capacity.
