THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) said that the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) had failed in their obligation to report a significant loss, with regards to the supply of power in Panay Island, that resulted in the  three-day blackout.

ERC chairperson Mona Dimalanta said that based on their Grid Code, it notes that the system operator such as the NGCP is obligated to make a report on the  significant incident to the ERC.

It is done within 15 minutes via text message and subsequently submit an initial written report within an hour of the incident.

“The first outage of the (Panay Energy Development Corporation) PEDC 1 unit...it went out at 12 noon...we did not receive a significant incident report [from NGCP]. The first report that we got is already following the cascading [tripping of power plants] at 2 pm,” Dimalanta said.

It will be recalled that a power outage occurred on January 2 or a day after New Year’s Day revelry. 

This was followed by other trippings in PEDC Unit 2, Palm Concepcion Power Corporation (PCPC), and then a series of trippings around 2:19 pm.

“Under the Grid Code, the loss of a large generating unit is considered a significant incident. In the Visayas, as provided by the Grid Code, anything above five megawatts is already considered a large generator and is already a significant [incident]," added Dimalanta. 

Dimalanta said that under the Grid Code, the NGCP is “responsible for ensuring that load-generation balance is maintained during normal, alert and emergency conditions."