By Amy R. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:33:00 01/28/2010

Filed Under: Energy, Electricity Production & Distribution

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF Electricity Consumers for Reforms Inc. (Nasecore) urged the government to conduct an inventory of the capacity of all power plants in the country and revisit the contracts and facilities awarded to the private sector.

The group said this was to avoid the repeat of the power outage on Monday which was brought about by the breakdown of a generation unit at the Sual plant.

In separate letters to the Department of Energy, Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. and Philippine Electricity Market Corp., Nasecore said its request was anchored on its desire “to see the reliability, quality and security of power supply in the ongoing restructuring of the power industry.”

The Luzon grid was put on red alert on Monday due to a power supply deficiency on the island caused by the problem at the Sual plant.

This led to two-hour rotating brownouts in Metro Manila and several provinces in Luzon. The unit was repaired and restored on the same day.

“Something concrete must be done to prevent the recurrence of the same,” said group president Pete Ilagan.

“It is disappointing to know that if one generation plant in the Luzon grid with a capacity of 500 megawatts will conk out, end-users will suffer from unreliable and unsecured supply of electricity,” Ilagan said in the letter to Energy Secretary Angelo T. Reyes.

“Knowing that (the) Sual plant is operated under an independent power producer administrator (IPPA) agreement, we believe, the administrator is under obligation to ensure adequate supply of coal in order to put online the operation of the generation plant. To do otherwise would mean a violation of the said agreement,” he said.

Ilagan said the “capability of San Miguel Corp., as administrator of the Sual plant, should be a subject of review as the public has been made to suffer because of its glaring negligence in ensuring adequate supply of coal and its seeming incompetence in operating the Sual plant.”

In a separate letter to PSALM president Jose Ibazeta, Ilagan said the unfortunate incident “puts to question both the transfer of control of the IPP contract by PSALM to San Miguel.”

“In this regard, may we respectfully request PSALM to review its IPPA agreement with San Miguel and if the findings so warrants, to immediately cancel the IPPA agreement and take over the operations of Sual plants until such time that a new IPP administrator qualifies,” he said.

“PSALM must also impose the corresponding penalties for the power outage in order to protect the end-users from the damage done upon them. The power outage necessarily puts online the standby power plants which are more expensive to operate and, therefore, will result in higher rates that the consumers will have to pay for,” he added.

In the meantime, Nasecore had asked PEMC for updates on the daily trading transactions of all generation plants with the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market from July 2009 to Jan. 20, 2010 in terms of energy dispatched (kWh) and the amount or value of energy dispatched.

“This request is anchored on the concern that the cost of transactions at the WESM is ultimately passed-on to the end-users and we would also like to know if the WESM rates are comparable to the ERC-regulated and approved generation rates,” he said.

Reference:
Pete Ilagan
President
NASECORE
Mobile - 09178461299

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