HONTIVEROS WANTS FULL TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY IN PANAY BLACKOUT: Sen. Risa Hontiveros urges full transparency and accountability in the recent blackout which affected millions of residents in Panay and Guimaras. Senate PRIB photo
MANILA, Philippines — Energy experts said the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) failed to issue a significant incident notice after the tripping of Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) Unit 1 — one of the key factors behind the massive blackout in Western Visayas.
Robinson Descanzo, chief operating officer of the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines, first confirmed this during the Senate committee on energy’s Wednesday hearing on the Panay-wide blackout.
“Tama ba na importante ‘yan kasi kapag may ganitong tripping o may disturbances o anumang problema, dapat may information?” asked Senator Risa Hontiveros during the hearing.
(Is it right that that is important because when there is this tripping or there are disturbances or any problem, there must be information?)
Descanzo answered affirmatively to Hontiveros’ query, saying the notice should come from NGCP to other stakeholders in order to prevent the system from collapsing.
“In the presence po na walang automation, judgment po ‘yun no. Pwedeng i-coordinate ng [NGCP] sa mga utilities to shed some of their load — ‘yun pong load management na sinasabi namin para nang sa gayon ay magkaroon ng free up doon sa local supply na nakaabang lang po in case na gumagalaw ulit ang load,” Descanzo explained.
(In the presence that there is no automation, that’s a judgment. [NGCP] can coordinate with the utilities to shed some of their load — that’s the load management we’re talking about so that there can be a free up there in the local supply in case the load moves again.)
Descanzo’s statement was backed by National Transmission Corporation President Fortunato Leynes, who later on explained that under the Philippine Grid Code, “a tripping of a large generating unit, whether or not it resulted in automatic load dropping or manual load dropping is considered as a significant incident.”
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Later on the hearing, Hontiveros prodded NGCP if there was truth to these allegations, but NGCP’s Deputy General Counsel Atty. Mark Actub maintained that “under the Philippine Grid Code, there is no requirement at that point in time to issue the significant incident report.”
Hontiveros said this is subject to Energy Regulatory Commission’s investigation, citing a provision of the Philippine Grid Code that it is crucial to issue a significant notice of incident within 15 minutes of the event.
“I guess ang ina-argue ng corporation ay hindi ito nag necessitate ng significant notice,” said Hontiveros, to which Actub said yes.
(I guess your argument is that the event does not necessitate a significant notice.)