Published
By Myrna M. Velasco
The Department of
Energy (DOE) indicated that the center of investigation on the alleged
collusion of generation companies (GenCos) will be on the ‘bidding behavior’
and the level of revenue generation of the power firms with multiple
electricity generating assets.
Energy Undersecretary
Felix William B. Fuentebella told reporters that they have already collated the
initial documents from the ‘yellow alert’ incidents in March supply month; but
the department has yet to complete those for April incidents of both yellow and
red alert circumstances in the Luzon grid.
On a positive note,
Fuentebella indicated that they are expecting several generating facilities to
be synchronized back to the grid today – including the Mariveles and Limay coal
plants in Bataan.
With the plants getting
back into the system, the energy department is expecting that power supply will
likely improve starting Wednesday (April 24). The plants, he said, are targeted
to be synchronized to the grid around Tuesday midnight.
“We are going to submit
all our findings both to PCC (Philippine Competition Commission) and the ERC
(Energy Regulatory Commission),” he stressed, adding that the market
surveillance committee of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) already
turned in the initial documents.
“What we are looking at
– for example are those GenCos with conglomerates of plants,” he said,
expounding that if a GenCo has a plant with scheduled maintenance and another
power fleet suffered a forced outage, then the center of the probe will be on
the bidding behavior that its other plants have been exhibiting at the spot
market – and whether or not they have been gaining immensely financially on the
other plants.
“We will look at the
behavior of the other plants which are operating, for example plants C. D and E
— if they are coming out with strategy to recover the losses from their other
plants which are on shutdown and if these are being passed on to the
consumers,” Fuentebella stressed.
Relating to the
allegations of collusion, Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi averred that “while
we are currently investigating the matter, it is highly inappropriate for us to
comment, make assumptions or speculate on the causes of what we think is an extraordinary
occurrence.”
The energy chief
admitted “there are no quick fixes to such incidents,” as he gave word that the
department “is continuously finding ways to prevent a similar incident from
happening again.”
Cusi said it remains a
puzzle why the brownouts happened “despite having an excess of 1,131 megawatts
over peak demand,” although he qualified “the unfortunate unforeseen shutdowns
of several plants at the same time resulted in 1,502MW loss of available capacity.”
He thus asserted “the
brownouts experienced by electricity consumers in certain parts of Luzon on
April 11 and 12, 2019 are deeply regrettable, and we apologize for the
inconvenience caused.”
On Tuesday as an
aftermath of the earthquake that struck Luzon, the country’s major power grid
was placed on ‘red alert’ condition again because some plants were on shutdown
following the calamity.
The grid was placed on
red alert from 10am to 4:00pm, but due to cooler weather temperatures, there
had been no manual load dropping or rotating brownouts enforced.
According to the
National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), it observed a demand
decline of 200 megawatts because of “cloudy weather condition’ plus the sudden
‘no work declaration’ in government offices contributed to lower electricity
consumption during the day.
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