By: Ronnel W. Domingo - 05:24 AM
April 11, 2019
A group of consumer welfare
advocates yesterday blasted the indecision of regulators and the courts on
applications and cases related to new power plants as demand exceeded supply in
the Luzon grid, causing rotational brownouts in some areas.
Parts of Bulacan, Cavite and
northern Metro Manila suffered brownouts despite an assurance from the
Department of Energy that there might be no need for rotational service
interruptions.
In a statement, Laban Konsumer
president Vic Dimagiba said petitions were pending in the Energy Regulatory
Commission (ERC) and the courts, particularly for baseload power
plants—generators that run round the clock—that would add capacity to the
system.
“They cannot keep dragging their
feet and pussyfooting, and allow the system to collapse due to indecisiveness,”
Dimagiba said.
He said the ERC, in particular, had
to step up and decide whether to reject or approve the power plants that would
provide the necessary power supply in these times of red alert.
“Generators are wary about investing
in new power plants because of too much red tape and regulatory uncertainties,”
he said.
Dimagiba said regulators and the
courts, with their indecisiveness, were bringing the country back to the power
crisis years of the 1990s.
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said
manual load dropping (MLD) started at 1:14 p.m., with brownouts experienced in
portions of Malolos, Plaridel, Bustos, Pulilan and Guiguinto in Bulacan; and
Tagaytay, Alfonso, Indang, Maragondon, Mendez-Nuñez, General Emilio Aguinaldo,
Amadeo, Imus and Bacoor in Cavite.
In Metro Manila, affected areas
included Malabon, Navotas, Caloocan City, Valenzuela as well as Batasan,
Fairview, Bago Bantay and Novaliches in Quezon City.
National Grid Corp. of the Philippines
(NGCP) on Wednesday said it might implement manual load dropping—or rotational
supply interruption—that would affect the service areas of Meralco as well as
distributors that service Abra, Isabela, parts of Bataan, San Fernando in
Pampanga, Tarlac City, parts of Quezon province, Camarines Sur and Albay.
The red alert notice—which means the
projected demand exceeds available power generating capacity by more than 200
megawatts—was issued for the 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. as well as 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
time intervals.
A yellow alert—projected demand
leaves reserve generation capacity at less than 647 MW—was issued for the
intervals 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.; 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. to
9 p.m.
Power plants that represent 827 MW
in capacity were on planned outage on April 10.
“(We do) not expect any power
interruption because there are 174.6 MW available under the Interruptible Load
Program (ILP) within the Meralco franchise area,” the DOE said in a statement.
Citing data from NGCP and power
plant operators, the DOE said four facilities—which represent a total of 1,352
MW of capacity—were under forced or unscheduled outage due to technical
problems.
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