THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said that they maintain a close watch on energy security as it issued a total of 65 Notices of Non-Compliance with Order to Explain (NNCOE) issued against various generation companies nationwide with facilities/units that exceeded the allowable number of unplanned outages.
The ERC’s performance of its mandate aligns with the recent call of government leaders, policymakers, and various sectors to ensure accountability among power industry stakeholders for the steady power supply and, in particular, prevention of service interruptions, such as the recent four-day outage in Panay Island.
As provided under the ERC Resolution No. 10, series of 2020, entitled “A Resolution Adopting the Interim Reliability Performance Indices and Equivalent Outage Days Per Year of Generating Units,” the ERC had set the maximum days of planned and unplanned outages per year and per generating plant technology.
The ERC Resolution was issued pursuant to the Philippine Grid Code that requires a system of recording and reporting of Grid Reliability determined through a set of indicators.
Under this issuance, generation companies are required to submit an event report to the ERC for planned and unplanned outages of generating facilities/units, within 48 hours from the occurrence of the event. On top of this, GenCos are also required to submit a weekly summary report to the ERC every Tuesday of the following week declaring outage events of their facilities.
To date, the Commission has already imposed approximately PhP60 Million in penalties against generation companies for violation of the Reliability Index.
If the generation companies served with 65 NNCOEs are later found non-compliant, the ERC will likewise impose appropriate sanctions and penalties against the erring power firms in accordance with the rules of the Commission.
In relation to this, the ERC Chairperson & CEO Monalisa C. Dimalanta recently renewed the call to amend Republic Act No. 9136, also known as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001, to allow the application of penalties imposed on erring power firms as refunds to consumers inconvenienced by
