Aquino ‘special powers’ OKd

President Benigno Aquino III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Sixteen senators  on Monday  voted   to pass on third and  final  reading  a joint resolution,  granting “special powers” to President Benigno Aquino  III to address the projected  “electricity  imbalance” in the Luzon  grid during the summer this year.

No  member of the Senate   objected or   abstained when Senate  Joint Resolution 12 initiated  by Senate President  Franklin Drilon and Senator Sergio Osmeña III, chairman of the Senate committee on energy, was put to a vote  in the plenary.

The proposed measure was the chamber’s  response to  the President’s request   last September 2014 to the two chambers  of Congress for authority  to establish  additional generating capacity, citing  the projected “critical electricity situation” in  the summer of 2015 in Luzon.

In December, 2014, the  House  of Representatives  also approved House Joint Resolution No. 21 that seeks “to provide for the establishment of additional power generating capacity as mandated by Republic Act No. 9136, also known as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), to effectively address the projected shortage of the supply of electricity in the Luzon grid from March 12 to July 2015.”

Congress will then convene a bicameral conference committee to reconcile the two versions of the proposed measure and  come up  with  a report for ratification by the two chambers.

Osmeña, in a statement, was quick to clarify  that the President would not be given a blanket authority under the resolution “nor would it provide exemptions from existing laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.”

“The resolution is not mandatory and would enable productions from hydro and gas plants to be tweaked,” he said.

He explained that the proposed measure would authorize the President to address the projected imbalance of power supply and demand in the Luzon grid, particularly in the months of April and May of this year.

While the average electricity demand was projected at 8,700 MW, Osmeña said, the highest demand of power on the hottest day and hour in April and May would peak at 9,000 megawatts (MW).

“Having 9,000 MW guarantees a brownout since a certain number of power plants break down while some go on scheduled maintenance because no power plant could operate continuously the entire year,” he pointed out.

The resolution then  proposed “a more efficient way to solve the power crisis in a much cheaper way” than what the executive department earlier recommended.

Osmeña said the House version of the bill included the suspension of pertinent laws, rules and regulation and made it mandatory for self-generating facilities to participate in the Interruptible Load Program (ILP), a provision not found in the Senate version.

Under the ILP, owners of generating sets would be asked to deload from the Luzon Grid and to use their own gensets at certain hours.

The adoption of the ILP, he said,  would cost consumers a low P7 to P8 per kilowatt an hour as compared to the P35 per kilowatt an hour under a Department of Energy proposal to lease 300 MW in gensets at a cost of P6 billion for two years or P10 million per MW.

“In this manner, up to 1,400 megawatts may be deloaded for a few peaking hours on certain days,”  said Osmena.

The senator said  Mindanao and Cebu had adopted the ILP system since 2010 due to the chronic electricity shortages in the areas.

Drilon lauded the passage of the measure, saying it was important for the country to avert a critical electricity situation due to the expected effects of the El Nino phenomenon, the 2015 Malampaya turnaround and continuing outages of power plants, which could affect both businesses and ordinary homes.

“If we did not act, then it would have been a great inconvenience and grave disservice to our citizens, especially ordinary Filipinos who will have to endure the summer season without electricity,” he said.

Apart from bringing a solution to the foreseen summer outages, Drilon said, the resolution was part of efforts “to establish a clear energy agenda and to address the growing concern over the perceived inability of the country’s power sector to keep up with the growing demand that is intricately linked to the Philippine economy’s immense economic growth.”

Originally posted:  3:56 PM | Monday, March 2nd, 2015

RELATED STORIES

Aquino wants emergency powers to solve power crisis

Aquino defends special powers