THE militant Makabayan bloc yesterday sought a congressional investigation into the issuance of red and yellow alerts by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) for the Luzon and Visayas grids, respectively, supposedly due to forced outages of five electric power plants and the derated capacity of three others.
Rep. France Castro (PL, ACT) filed House Resolution No. 971 urging the House committee on energy to investigate the matter, which she said would affect various parts of Metro Manila and other provinces.
“Dapat talagang maimbestigahan ito at mapanagot ang may kasalanan dahil kada summer na lang ay ganito ang nangyayari at di nila sinosolusyonan. Dahil na din siguro sa kumikita ang mga power players sa ganitong modus (This really has to be investigated and the culprits be held accountable because the same thing happens every summer. They have repeatedly failed to offer a solution. It’s also probably because power players earn from this modus),” Castro said.
The other members of the Makabayan bloc are party-list Reps. Arlene Brosas of Gabriela, and Rep. Raoul Manuel of Kabataan.
The resolution said that while the Department of Energy (DOE) assured the public last March that there will be no power interruptions during the dry season, several areas in Metro Manila, Cavite, and Rizal were hit by brownouts last May 8 after the NGCP declared a red alert on the Luzon grid, and yellow alert on the Visayas grid.
The resolution said that the investigation should be done to identify how Republic Act No. 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (EPIRA), could be repealed or amended.
Contrary to the promises of EPIRA, the resolution said “privatization of the electric power industry did not result in more affordable, accessible and reliable electricity to the Filipino people.”
“For more than two decades of its implementation, the power situation in the Philippines did not improve. While the private companies earn billions of profit, the Filipino people are suffering from high cost of electricity rates, and rotational and unplanned power outages. If not ultimately repealed, it is high time for Congress to, at the very least, review and introduce amendments to EPIRA,” the measure said.
Last May 8, the NGCP put the Luzon grid under red alert from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. and under yellow alert from 4 to 6 p.m.
The Luzon grid was put under red and yellow alerts due to the tripping of the Bolo-Masinloc 230 kV Line 2, which then led to the tripping of Masinloc Units 1 and 2 (618 MW).
This also affected the export of generated supply from the Luzon grid to the Visayas grid, which resulted in the declaration of yellow alert for the Visayas grid from 2 to 9 p.m.
According to the NGCP, five power plants were on forced outage, while three others were running on derated capacities, leaving 1,354 MW “unavailable to the grid.”
As of around 2 p.m. on May 8, the NGCP said the available capacity was only 12,186 MW while the peak demand was at 12,468 MW.
At 6 p.m., the NGCP lifted the red alert status for the Luzon grid after the available capacity reached 11,896 MW, which was above the peak demand of 11,093 MW.
However, it extended the yellow alert status until 8 p.m.
Citing news reports, the resolution said four of the five power plants that went on forced outage were the following: Unit 1 Calaca coal-fired power plant, Units 1 and 4 of the Binga hydropower facility, and Units 1 and 2 of the Masinloc coal-fired power generating facilities.
The three derated power plants were the two units of Sual plant and Unit 2 of Calaca plant.
Sual plant’s Unit 1 had been extremely derated at 67MW, and Unit 2 at 227MW, from their original capacities of 647MW each, while Unit 2 of Calaca plant was derated at 120 MW from 300 MW capacity.
The forced outage of the Masinloc plant was allegedly due to a “balancing problem” in the system of the NGCP, which triggered the tripping of its Masinloc-Bolo line 2 transmission facility.
The forced outage of the Unit 1 of Calaca plant was due to boiler leak while Unit 2 was running at derated capacity due to generator vibration, the resolution said.
Meanwhile, the forced outage of Binga hydropower facility was caused by “hydrological constraint due to low reservoir elevation,” which NGCP said beyond management control.
Following the declaration of red and yellow alerts, the NGCP also suspended the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the Luzon grid, and the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) implemented manual load dropping (MLD) or rotating power interruptions of up to two hours within its franchise area as instructed by the NGCP and as part of their responsibility to manage the system.
“According to MERALCO, 321,705 customers in parts of Metro Manila, Rizal and Cavite were affected by power interruptions triggered by the red alert. Power in those areas was restored at 3:45 p.m,” the resolution said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito urged the government to find ways to buy back the 40 percent shares of stock of China in the NGCP even if “it will entail a lot of cost.”
He reiterated that allowing China to hold on to its share raises “national security concerns,” especially amid the thinning power supply.
“We have to find ways. We are talking about national interest. Maraming paraan naman siguro na itong vital entity that has national security issue has to remain at Philippine control (There are a lot of ways on how to keep this vital entity, which has national security issues, remain under Philippine control),” Ejercito said in an interview with the Senate media.
Sen. Francis Escudero warned the proposed buy back will pose problems for the Philippine government. “How much? Do we have the money given our huge debt? Are the owners selling or will this be a forced sale?” Escudero said in a message to the media.
“Does anyone honestly think that government can run NGCP better than the private sector? [We have] ‘been there, done that’ na tayo diyan. The Napocor (National Power Corporation) and NGCP, at that time, racked hundreds of billions of pesos of debt which we are paying up to now,” he added.
Escudero said buying back the shares of a foreign-owned corporation operating in the country is not good “as it may send a wrong signal to existing and potential investors.”
“Re-nationalization of formerly owned state assets is a policy that the National Government should be very careful,” he said.
Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said the panel “is open to review the congressional franchise of the NGCP as it concerns a critical need of Filipinos.”
“The committee will thoroughly scrutinize the performance of the NGCP and see if it has remained faithful to its signed franchise or if violations have been committee,” Poe said.
She said the brownouts experienced in parts of the country amid the summer season “should not be the norm.”
“We must also exercise vigilance when it comes to our power lines to ensure that electricity running from Luzon to Mindanao remains under the control of Filipinos amid national security concerns raised by senators,” she said.
Senate majority leader Joel Villanueva said a review of the NGCP franchise “makes a lot of sense” given the “increasing occurrence of brownouts in the Philippines.”
“The government should be more pro-active in ensuring that there would be enough power supply in the country, especially with the imminent occurrence of El Niño,” Villanueva said.
He said this was the reason why he filed Senate Resolution No. 556 last March, urging the DOE and other concerns agencies to come up with programs, activities, and initiatives to ensure the continuous supply of electricity throughout the year. — With Raymond Africa
