Energy department urged to act on insufficient power reserves

Consumer group National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms Inc. (Nasecore) is pressing the Department of Energy (DOE) to solve at once the lack of power reserves amid the looming tight supply in the Luzon grid come summer months.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla, Nasecore president Pete Ilagan said the agency must stop handling the matter “with kids’ gloves” and make National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) fulfill its mandate of ensuring round-the-clock delivery of electricity by sourcing power reserves or ancillary services.

“We are convinced that DOE’s lack of resoluteness is [scarier] than NGCP’s lack of compliance in ensuring sufficient energy reserves,” said Ilagan.

Repeat offender

Nasecore contended that NGCP “has consistently failed” to secure energy reserves through competitive bidding “resulting in red and yellow alerts, year in and year out.”

“It is regrettable that the DOE has allowed this situation to continue and merely limited its role to that of a forecaster of power situation instead of a resolute enforcer of the law,” said Ilagan.

As early as last year, the DOE repeatedly flagged the possibility of thin power reserves, with its latest warning saying electricity consumers in Luzon may contend with supply woes for most of 2023, especially during the summer season.

Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara said earlier while no red alerts or power interruptions are expected in the Luzon grid this year, yellow alerts may be raised in the country’s largest island 12 times as early as March to as late as November.

She said yellow alerts might occur during the following periods: March 12 to March 18; March 26 to April 1; April 23 to April 29; the entire month of May; June 1 to June 10; Aug. 27 to Sept. 2; Oct. 15 to Oct. 21 and Nov. 19 to Nov. 25.

The DOE’s projections, according to the energy official, already took into consideration the scheduled outage of power plants with a combined capacity of 500 to 600 megawatts.

Thin reserves

Yet, she said a red alert might be raised in the Luzon grid if at least one power plant went on a forced outage.

A red alert means a supply deficiency exists, which can result in power interruptions while a yellow alert means insufficient power reserves or ancillary services.

“Thus, should there be brownouts during the coming summer season owing to the lack of energy reserves, we shall be constrained to hold accountable and liable the Department of Energy and NGCP so as to show that brownouts [have] no place in a reformed power industry as called for by the Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act),” he added.

The Energy Regulatory Commission previously slapped NGCP with a P5.1-million fine for violating the DOE circular on contracting ancillary services, accompanied by a threat of pushing the revocation of its franchise. NGCP has since then paid the penalty.

The regulator penalized NGCP as the latter “willfully violated” the existing rules, particularly on not obtaining the DOE’s approval before publishing its terms of reference and invitation to bid for procuring power reserves.

NGCP, a privately owned company that operates the country’s transmission backbone, is mandated to secure ancillary services designed to ensure the uninterrupted transmission of electricity from power plants to electricity end-users. This is one of the firm’s obligations under its congressional franchise. INQ