DOE, ERC urged to penalize power generation firms over plant outages

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Sherwin Gatchalian urged the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to consider penalizing power generation companies over the forced or unplanned outages of their power plants.

It was revealed during a Senate committee on energy hearing that there are no penalties for power generation companies failing to meet their committed capacity due to power plant outages.

“I think we should impose heavier penalties as a policymaker because mayroon nga silang penalty sa kanilang utility pero ang dami namang taong napipinsala (because a lot of people are affected),” Gatchalian said during the hearing.

“I just want to urge the department (DOE) and also the regulator (ERC) to really look at this concept of disincentivizing delays, forced outages, unplanned outages,” Gatchalian said during the hearing.

DOE Assistant Secretary Redentor Delola said that the agency will try to look into the issue and “pursue the policy initiative on penalizing the delays of committed plants.”

Meanwhile, ERC chairman Agnes Devenadera said that the commission is “getting to be very strict” in holding the power generations to their commitments, saying that delays are “really burdensome to consumers.”

Gatchalian said the government must ensure that consumers are not burdened by forced or unplanned power plant outages of the generation companies.

“We have to make sure that consumers are not being saddled with the responsibility of the proponents because nata-transfer ‘yan sa consumers,” he added.

The DOE has attributed the ongoing unexpected brownouts in certain parts of Luzon due to the “simultaneous unplanned outages of several power plants.” /ee

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