MANILA – An official from the Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday said the agency will investigate if there is really a collusion among power plants following the outages which resulted in the thinning of reserves.
“Kinoconsider din ng DOE na pag-aralan ‘yung sitwasyon na ito… na ito ba ay talagang insidente o mga insidente na nangyari na ang isyu ay teknikal at hindi nagkakaroon tayo ng tinatawag nating manipulasyon sa merkado ng kuryente,” Mario Marasigan, head of the DOE’s Electric Power Industry and Management Bureau said in a phone interview on GMA News TV’s News To Go.
“Tayo naman po ay nakipag-ugnayan at humingi ng tulong sa atin pong regulator ng power industry, ang Energy Regulatory Commission kasama na rin po ang Philippine Competitive Commission…” he added.
Marasigan said the DOE has ordered all personnel involved in the unplanned outages to submit their reports to validate the allegation.
“Pinatawag po namin umpisa kahapon ang lahat ng teknikal at mga opisyal ng mga planta na na-involve po dito sa forced outages. Inalam po natin ano ang talagang problema ng planta… pinagsasubmit po namin sila ng report,” Marasigan said.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, called on the DOE as well as the Philippine Competition Commission to check the possible collusion, noting that the price at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) has already rose to P8 per kilowatt hour.
“We have to look at that because nag spike ang presyo to P8 sa WESM,” Gatchalian said.
“We will now flag DOE and also PCC to look for possible collusion… Ang laki ng nawala sa sistema natin, 1400 megawatts is malaking capacity ‘yan out of the close to 13,000 m,” he added.
On Wednesday, the Luzon power grid has been placed under red alert, a system condition in which there is zero ancillary services or a generation deficiency exists.
Despite the alerts raised over the power grid, the DOE noted that it does not expect any power interruption because there are 174.6 megawatts available under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) within the Manila Electric Co. franchise area. (GMA News)
