All 17 power generation companies (gencos) earlier found to have plant outage allowance breaches have turned in their explanations to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
ERC Commissioner Floresinda Digal said Monday that the last two gencos have submitted their reply Monday morning. “It is complete now. Their responses have just been submitted to us.”
The agency has commenced to validate their reasons as to why 35 of their generating units were on prolonged outage. She did not give a timetable as to when it would finish the review.
“The time to decide will depend on the explanations offered. We don’t want to commit. But it will be resolved as soon as all proceedings and evidences are in and evaluation is complete,” Digal said.
The 17 gencos are Sem Calaca Power Corp., GN Power Mariveles Center Ltd. Co., Masinloc Power Partners Co. Ltd., Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp., Team Sual Corp., SPC Power Corp., Panay Power Corp., SN Aboitiz Power-Benguet Inc., CBK Power Co. Ltd., SPC Island Power Corp., First Natgas Power Corp., FGP Corp., First Gas Power Corp., Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp., Energy Development Corp., Hedcor Bukidnon Inc.; and PSALM-Soosan ENS Co. Ltd.
Some explanations raised for extended plant outages are travel restrictions imposed on foreign nationals, and delays in the arrival of supplies and materials brought about by the pandemic.
The ERC said they have breached the maximum allowable unplanned outage days for 2021.
Under ERC Resolution No. 10, Series of 2020 titled “A Resolution Adopting the Interim Reliability Performance Indices and Equivalent Outage Days Per Year of Generating Units,” a cap for annual unplanned outages per generating plant technology was set.
ERC Chairperson Agnes Devanadera said the rules are meant to promote accountability of gencos, the system operator, and the transmission network provider to achieve greater operations and economic efficiency. Likewise, the ERC has identified gencos that are not compliant with the reporting requirements. Out of the 2,083 incidents on unplanned outages during the period of January to April, 1,288 incidents were reported.
For the 236 incidents on the planned outages, 220 were reported. The ERC will issue show cause orders to the power firms that did not comply with the reporting requirements of the agency.
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