Options on power shortage still being mulled

Business World Online
Posted on August 12, 2014 10:58:00 PM

THE JOINT Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) is still reviewing if invoking Section 71 of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) is the best way to solve the country’s impending power supply shortage in 2015.

“We have to satisfy ourselves with the terms and the parameters and conditions. We will not give the emergency powers without defining the parameters,” House Energy Committee Chairperson Reynaldo V. Umali said in a press briefing after the JCPC House Panel Caucus yesterday.

“Instead, we will have to comply with the requirements of Section 71, which is first to determine whether there is really an imminent shortage. As it is now, there is a shortage, there are rotating brownouts,” Mr. Umali said.

“But please remember that there are also imbedded capacities that are not accounted for. And this is what we want to determine. There are already existing capacities,” he added.

The JCPC -- composed of an executive director and 14 members from the two chambers of Congress -- is mandated to monitor and ensure the proper implementation of the EPIRA.

Mr. Umali noted that the Energy Regulatory Commission has already registered 3,500 diesel plants in the country.

“We have also learned that there are big industries who have their own generators and are willing to help, but without going through the WESM (wholesale electricity spot market),” he added.

“So when they go off the grid, about 3,100 megawatts (MW) will be freed.”

“We can always force them through Section 71, but what if they want to participate? Why force when they are willing to provide them?” Mr. Umali said.

In a separate interview after the briefing, the lawmaker said that 115 establishments have already offered to get off the grid and use their own generators should circumstances next year call for it.

House Energy Committee Vice Chair Rosenda Ann M. Ocampo, meanwhile, said that the JCPC “is not gung-ho in giving emergency powers.”

“We just want to make sure that it is what really needs to be done,” Ms. Ocampo said. “Remember we had a bad experience in which consumers ended up having to pay for more expensive power at the time that we gave emergency powers to [former] President [Fidel V.] Ramos in the early ‘90s,” she explained

Section 71 of the EPIRA says: “Upon the determination by the President of the Philippines of an imminent shortage of the supply of electricity, Congress may authorize, through a joint resolution, the establishment of additional generating capacity under such terms and conditions as it may approve.”

Last month, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla said there is an expected power shortage of 200MW by May 2015, but said this does not constitute “a full-blown crisis.” He has asked President Benigno S. C. Aquino III to “consider” invoking EPIRA Section 71.

The department has also asked for the JCPC’s position on the state contracting power generating capacities. -- B.C.P. Balaoing   source