Senate building (PNA file photo by Avito Dalan)
MANILA – The Senate Committee on Energy will look into the recent power supply dip that led the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to declare red and yellow alerts in the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao power grids on several occasions these past days.
Senator Raffy Tulfo, chair of the panel, said they will begin the investigation on May 6, which will also tackle the monitored power rate increases affecting millions of households.
The hearing is in response to Senate Resolution No. (SRN) 1008 filed by Tulfo on Thursday which seeks to identify the root cause of the insufficient power supply, including power plant outages and unscheduled shutdowns.
“It is important to determine the cause of the insufficiency of power supply to meet consumer demand, including the cause of power plant outages and unscheduled shutdowns,” Tulfo said.
The resolution also emphasizes the need to protect consumers from the significant market price increases resulting from the alerts.
“There is a need to ensure that the increases in the market prices should not be borne by the innocent consumers,” Tulfo added.
He stressed the importance of ensuring adequate power supply and preventing nationwide rotational brownouts through appropriate measures and interventions by relevant agencies and industry players.
Reliability Index
In an interview on Thursday, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said he wanted to look into the liability of power generation companies (GenCos) over these power outages.
"Matatandaan natin, dahil nga sa mga hearing na na-conduct nung mga unang panahon, meron nang tinatawag tayong Reliability Index. So ibig sabihin, yung mga planta hindi dapat basta-bastang pumapalya (We would recall that during the previous hearings, we have cited the Reliability Index. It means that plants should not just fail easily)," Gatchalian said, noting that power plants must be maintained well.
Looking at the list of GenCos that declared forced outage, Gatchalian said some of them lack crude oil, and feedstock, among other issues which should have been anticipated considering that the country is experiencing El Niño.
In an advisory, NGCP said Luzon and Visayas grids were both under yellow alert on April 26 due to insufficient power supply. (PNA)
