Senators grill ERC over scarce power plant maintenance checks

FILE PHOTO Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) /INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — The Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) inadequate regular inspection of power plants could be blamed for the brownouts being experienced in some parts of the country.

During a Senate committee on energy hearing regarding the recent yellow and red alerts on the country’s electricity capacity, the ERC admitted that it is only able to check power plants every two and a half years.

“In terms of maintenance inspection, wala hong regular na (there’s no regular) maintenance [checks],” ERC Director Sharon Montaner replied to Senator Raffy Tulfo’s query about how often the ERC conducts maintenance checkups on power plants.

“Admittedly, what we do is less monitoring based on the benchmarks,” she added.

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According to Montaner, the ERC only ever inspects the power plants at the beginning of its application for Certificate of Compliance (COC), in the middle of the COC’s five-year term, and during the next application.

Tulfo, however, immediately called out that policy and blamed such lack of inspection as the cause for many power plants’ sudden forced outages.

“Kaya pala maraming outages. Kapag nag-inquire kami, ‘yung planta daw nag-bog down dahil nasira, dahil may piyesang kailangan palitan at kailangan order-in …  so hindi ninyo ginagawa trabaho ninyo diyan sa ERC,” said Tulfo.

(That’s why there are many outages. Whenever we inquire, they’d say the plant bogged down because it was damaged, because a part of it needs to be replaced and ordered in, so you are not doing your work there at ERC.)

Senator Francis Escudero also asked why the ERC fails to regularly inspect power plants, pointing out that simply doing desk maintenance would mean just waiting for the power plants to submit a report on their respective conditions.

“Now it’s good if they will declare against their interests and say that there’s something wrong with their plant, but they usually don’t,” Escudero pointed out.

“… These are private corporations which are for profit. Admittedly, prinivitize nga natin eh so tinatanggap natin na gusto nilang kumita (we privatized them, so we are accepting that they want to make money),” he added.

Escudero said the ERC wouldn’t even know the exact conditions of power plants as the body merely depends on the facilities’ reports.

“You require them to submit, but nobody actually from ERC or even DOE (Department of Energy) goes to the plant, who understands the plant, and will be able to see and say, ‘Bakit hindi ninyo pinalitan ito, ‘di ba dapat pinalitan na ito two years ago?’,” said Escudero.

(Why did you not replace this, it should have been replaced two years ago, right?)

“Nobody is competent in both ERC and DOE and does that actually, right?” he also asked.

Escudero likewise rejected the ERC’s claim that they are understaffed, saying it was only a convenient excuse to conceal their failure in carrying out due diligence via a thorough inspection of power plants.

According to the senator, 35 unplanned outages in Luzon, 48 in Visayas, and 10 in Mindanao were logged on April 16 while red and yellow alerts were hoisted over power grids in the three main regions of the country.

Escudero further stressed that the DOE and ERC should have inspected the power plants to verify their claims of scare electricity supply but the agencies merely relied on their reports.

“Actually, wala kayong kamuwang-muwang, you don’t have eyes, you don’t have ears, you don’t have feet and warm hands on the ground to find out na ang sinasabi nilang rason ay totoo or hindi, and my problem is you will decide based on their submission and their submission alone, kung impose ninyo sila ng fine dahil hindi inaalagaan ‘yung planta,” he added.

(Actually, you are naïve, you don’t have eyes, you don’t have ears, you don’t have feet and warm hands on the ground to find out whether the reason they are saying is true or not, and my problem is you will decide based on their submission and their submission alone, if you impose a fine on them for not taking care of the plant.)

Tulfo then asked the ERC if it has already imposed penalties against erring generation companies who have been on prolonged outages.

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In response, the ERC said it has so far imposed a total of P60 million in penalties in just a year to around 27 to 30 electricity generation companies.

But Escudero downplayed the ERC’s claim, asserting that 4,000 outages occurred from 2020 to 2023 alone.

This led Tulfo to order the ERC to submit a full list of generation companies it has penalized in the next hearing.