Published October 24, 2017, 10:00 PM
By Myrna M. Velasco
Forced outages in power plants and
tripping of transmission lines will soon be enforced with penalties based on
the ‘causers pay principle’ being thought out by the Department of Energy.
This is one of the directions the
department has been advancing on its ‘policy tools rewiring’, according to
Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi “to discipline’ players in the restructured
power industry and enhance reliability in the country’s electricity system.
“The DOE has a number of initiatives
to ensure protection of the consumers. One is the implementation of the causers
pay policy, which is a rewards-and-penalty system, where power industry players
may be held accountable for forced outages,” the energy chief said.
Under “causers pay principle”, a
corresponding penalty shall be imposed upon players that shall be causing
distress in the power system triggering service interruptions to consumers.
In other countries, this industry
fiat is alternatively enforced with the “beneficiary pays principle” which
means that the beneficiaries bear the costs; or the “user pays principle”,
wherein end-users will essentially shoulder all the costs incurred in the
provision of service to them.
Cusi said the department would
likely implement this penalty system through a Circular and be incorporated in
the rules of the spot market after concluding the study and eventual public
consultation on this policy proposition.
As expounded by Energy
Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella, the energy department takes heed
of the experiences of the Australian and Singapore markets on this policy
sphere.
An oft-repeated scenario in the
Philippine power sector primarily in instances of rolling brownouts, has been
‘finger pointing’ as to which entity is at fault – and in the end, no one gets
punished among the industry players. Ultimately, it would only be the consumers
suffering not just from poor service, power interruptions but also high
electric bills.
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