The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on Thursday took the cudgels for the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), saying the latter complied with the requirements of an independent investigative panel on the April 2023 blackout on Panay Island.
At the congressional hearing on the Jan. 2 blackout in Panay Island, ERC Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta responded to the query of Deputy Majority Leader Lorenz Defensor on the result of the commission’s probe on the NGCP after a similar blackout on the island nine months ago.
“The April incident was investigated by the interim grid management committee. This was the group of experts,” Dimalanta said.
“They submitted their recommendation to the ERC. We facilitated the discussion with NGCP, because all the recommendations required actions of NGCP including coordination with the generating plants; simulations, several simulations that were required of NGCP of several scenarios, contingencies,” she said.
This developed as Senator Sherwin Gatchalian proposed to expand government involvement in the operations of the NGCP, the privately-owned grid operator.
Gatchalian said the government could take over the system operations of the NGCP, while the private company retains the transmission operations.
He pointed out that in other jurisdictions, “different entities own the lines and expand the lines, and different entity operates the lines and that’s the system operator.”
“The theory behind there is there’s check and balance within these two,” Gatchalian, chair of the Senate energy committee, told ANC.
At present, 40 percent of the NGCP is owned by the State Grid Corporation of China, with the remaining 60 percent owned by Filipinos.
The ERC chief said the NGCP was able to submit its report last November, or two months before the second power outage.
“As of the November report of NGCP, they indicated all of these measures. Almost all, I think only one remained as completed,” Dimalanta said.