MANILA, Philippines— For years now, the country has been experiencing more unplanned than scheduled power outages as revealed by Senator Francis Escudero on Tuesday.
During the Senate Committee on Energy’s hearing on the recent power supply crisis, Escudero enumerated the power outages he counted between April 16 and May 6 this year.
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For April 16, Escudero said there were 35 unplanned outages and eight planned outages in Luzon alone while Visayas recorded 48 unplanned outages and 10 in Mindanao.
He said there were also 27 unplanned outages and 18 planned outages on April 17 and another 26 unscheduled and only seven planned outages on April 18.
On May 6, he said, only six were scheduled but there were 16 forced outages and three went offline for unplanned maintenance for a total of 19 unplanned outages.
“Does this not highlight Director Sharon, Usec Guevarra, the fact that you should monitor the plants more closely because we have more unplanned outages than we do planned outages?” Escudero then asked.
He was directing his question to Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevarra and Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Director Sharon Montaner.
Unplanned outages mean that power plants shut down their operations without informing the DOE, the ERC, and the Systems Operator, the senator explained.
High heat index level
Guevarra tried to explain the situation by pointing to the high heat index level currently being experienced in the country.
“In our first slide, we showed you that this is a very strange weather that we’re having. The heat index was really very hot and it has affected many of the plants operations,” she said.
READ: ERC probes outages of some power plants
But Escudero was not convinced, saying the hot weather conditions should only affect hydropower plants.
“Why all the rest? Why will it affect coal? Why will it affect the wind? Why will it affect solar?” the senator asked.
He then provided more data to show that the hot temperature could not be faulted for the power outages.
“For the period of 2020 until 2023 in Luzon, there were supposed to be only 594 planned outages. Unplanned outages, including forced and maintenance, 4,683 events of unplanned outages. That’s only Luzon,” Escudero pointed out.
In Visayas, he said there were 7,000 recorded unplanned outages and only 94 scheduled outages while 238 unscheduled outages were logged in Mindanao during the same period.
“So it’s not the heat,” Escudero said.
He said that since 2020, only 10 percent of the outages were planned, 90 percent were unplanned.
“There must be something wrong. Don’t say they’re all force majeure,” he added.