Gov’t pushes for sanctions over Panay Island power outage

Possible sanctions are being explored by the government against the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and operators of several power plants for the power outage in Panay Island and other parts of Western Visayas.

Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said Saturday, Jan. 6, that an investigation is being handled by the Interim Grid Management Committee, the same group that investigated the power interruption in the same region last year.

“The investigation is ongoing but so far, we and the Department of Energy are seeing the same data,” Dimalanta, speaking in Tagalog, said in a news forum.

“By next week, we will have additional documents and additional information because we will have gathered everything by then. Then hopefully, we’ll have a clarification on what happened,” she added.

“We are not excusing these power plants. Of the six plants, if there is anyone that did not get maintained then it should be given a penalty, not just NGCP,” she further stated.

On Friday afternoon, the NGCP announced that the power supply in Panay and Guimaras islands had been restored and transmission operations were back to normal.

The power outage occurred when the 83-MW Panay Energy Development Corp. Unit 1 tripped on Tuesday, which was followed by its second unit and other power plants in Panay that were supposedly not scheduled for maintenance.

Energy security amid El Niño drought

Meanwhile, the ERC also said that it partnered with local government units (LGUs) in securing permits for solar home systems amid the impending drought and the upcoming summer season.

“What we do here in ERC is expediting the processing of permits for solar home systems through partnering with the local governments so that there would be a one-stop-shop,” Dimalanta said.

“People won’t have to go to the office of ERC to process the permit, we will be the ones to go to your local government to expedite the process of permits,” she added

“Hindi na po kayo pupunta sa opisina ng ERC para ayusin iyong mga permit, kami na po iyong pumupunta sa local government para po mas mabilis iyong pag-process ng permits,” she said.

The ERC chief also stated that they are partnering with Landbank of the Philippines in giving financial aid to those interested in installing solar home systems and creating programs to provide leeway to cooperatives with any energy problems due to the impact of the dry season.

“For the summer months, we already implemented it last year with LandBank, this what we call the Anti-Bill Shock Protection Program,” she said

“Those cooperatives can borrow from LandBank so when the costs of electricity rise, they will not charge their consumers right away, instead, Landbank will initially fill the gaps so they can pay the generating plans,” she further said.

The ERC also sparked an interest in partnering with PAG-IBIG’s loan facility to encourage more households to have their solar home systems, Dimalanta stated.

The government is promoting the use of solar home systems as one of the alternative solutions to reduce energy demand on the grid. — Xander Dave Ceballos