Senate, House To Probe Power Outages; Energy Chief Apologizes

 

Alexis Romero, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Delon Porcalla  Friday, June 4, 2021

https://www.onenews.ph/senate-house-to-probe-power-outages-energy-chief-apologizes

 

Lawmakers from both the Senate and the House of Representatives will conduct separate investigations into the rotational blackouts that hit several areas in Luzon in the past days.

This developed as Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi apologized on Thursday, June 3, for the power outages and assured the public that the government is working to ensure enough electricity supply.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian filed Resolution No. 740 seeking to conduct the inquiry in the hope of providing a long-term solution to electricity supply shortages, especially during summer.

He noted that 339,000 households from 90 barangays in 16 local government units lost power on June 1. Even two vaccination centers in Valenzuela City, where Gatchalian hails from, experienced power interruption.

“This is a critical situation and I would like to request the Department of Energy (DOE) to get all hands on deck especially in the coming days because from the forecast that I am seeing, there will be problem of load dropping in the next eight days,” said Gatchalian, Senate energy committee chairperson, during Wednesday’s plenary session.

The DOE is reportedly gathering evidence and considering the filing charges of economic sabotage against those that violated a policy banning the conduct of preventive maintenance from April to June, when demand for electricity is high.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, however, asked the DOE of its basis to lodge a complaint against power plants, saying the allegations were serious.

Gatchalian said the plan to file economic sabotage charges is also important to compel the generation companies to improve their operations.  He, however, said “this is a reactive move and it will not solve” the current blackouts being experienced.

“DOE should have anticipated the worst-case scenario earlier on and put in place contingency measures,” Gatchalian said, adding that “this is not an isolated case” as every summer, the threat of debilitating blackouts is real.

“The Senate is ready to work with DOE and ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) in looking of permanent solutions to this perennial problem,” Gatchalian noted.

In filing Senate the resolution, Gatchalian underscored the role of the DOE in ensuring the quality, reliability, security, and affordability of electric power supply in the country. He stressed that it is crucial to hold DOE to account for its failure to address power supply shortages since 2016.

Gatchalian said the DOE even gave assurances during the energy committee’s hearing on April 27 that there would be supply shortage during summer, yet some areas in Luzon experienced rotational brownouts on May 31 and June 1 “due to red alerts.”

The senator added it is crucial for the DOE to provide long-term solutions to this problem and a specific timeline for plans, “to include the hastening of the build-out of new power plants, aggressively utilizing energy efficiency and conservation, and contracting sufficient ancillary reserves.”

“All these things are necessary to protect the public and the economy from losses due to power outages and the resulting high prices of electricity due to limited power supply,” Gatchalian said.

Considering that the issue has been a recurring problem in the past five years, it’s high time that long-term solutions be finally put in place, he stressed.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said the DOE is shifting the blame to private power companies for its failure to avert power outages.

“It’s disappointing. Blame everyone except yourself. Where is accountability?” Drilon asked. “Blame-shifting won’t solve the power crisis.”

Drilon expressed support for a Senate investigation into the matter “in aid of legislation.”

Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo, House committee on energy chairman, said the body would conduct on its own initiative (motu proprio) an inquiry today regarding the reported rotational blackouts.

“We cannot afford to have these rotational (blackouts) at this point in time when we are expecting the anti-COVID-19 vaccine rollout to go on full blast in the coming days. We all know that the vaccines need to be stored in cold storage otherwise they’ll just go to waste and that will be a major setback for us in our fight against this dreaded virus,” Arroyo stated.

The inquiry, he said, is aimed at threshing out the cause of power shortage and coming up with recommendations to resolve the situation.

Quezon City Rep. Precious Hipolito-Castelo lamented that the blackouts “are happening despite the DOE assurance during the hearing of the Joint Congressional Power Commission that it does not see any demand-driven energy shortage during the summer season.”

 

Cusi apologizes

Cusi, for his part, said the island’s power supply was affected by the simultaneous breakdown of four large power plants with a total capacity of 2,017 megawatts.

“So we have a normal supply today and I apologize for the last two days when we had rotating (blackouts),” the energy chief told a press briefing.

He explained that the summer heat hiked the demand to more than 11,000 megawatts and that some power plants have not resumed normal operations, although efforts are already underway to address the issue.

“We still have 1,372 megawatts capacity, four plants that are still down. We are working on how they can resume their operations immediately,” Cusi said in Filipino.

He also said that he asked the help of the ERC and the Philippine Competition Commission to look into allegations that the problem was caused by sabotage. “While the investigation is not yet finished, we cannot say what really happened.”

On Wednesday, June 2, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines placed the Luzon grid under red alert for hours because of insufficient power supply in the grid.

But Cusi said that as of Thursday, the power supply is more than sufficient to meet the projected demand, pointing out that projected peak demand was at 10,300 megawatts – lower than the 11,600 megawatts of supply.

He added that several plants are under construction or are ready to be commissioned.

“So you can be assured that there are enough supplies as far as policy and construction are concerned. The public can be assured that your DOE, this government is on top of these things,” he stressed.

 

DOE duties not neglected

As vice chairman of the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), Cusi denied that he is prioritizing politics over his duties in the energy department.

“The power plants broke down and it happened while we have a meeting in Cebu. But it doesn’t mean I am neglecting it (duties as energy secretary) because I’m not the only guy (who) is running DOE (Department of Energy) and I trust my team. I trust the DOE people addressing the situation. Besides, the policies have been laid out already, it’s just that this is a question of enforcement,” he said.

Asked to react to Sen. Manny Pacquiao’s statement that Cusi was incompetent and would fire him over the power interruptions if he were President Duterte, the energy chief replied: “Well, just like the other secretaries, we serve at the pleasure of the President.”

Pacquiao, acting president of PDP-Laban, claimed that the assembly led by Cusi in Cebu was unauthorized because any call for a meeting must be approved by both the chairman and the president.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque has said Duterte himself had ordered Cusi to preside over the meeting. – With Danessa Rivera, Evelyn Macairan