DOE to issue show-cause orders to 175 power firms over outages, lapses

The Department of Energy (DOE) will issue show-cause orders to 175 power generation companies in the country — 164 in on-grid areas and 11 in off-grid areas — to explain forced outages and their failure to comply with reporting requirements.

DOE Secretary Sharon Garin said the 175 show-cause orders may be just the first batch, which were found in an accountability review covering March 2025 to March this year. They could face penalties or even the revocation of licenses depending on the gravity of the violation.

“These generating companies did not comply, but I have to emphasize that this is just a start. There are companies that we have observed that are not compliant. For example, they did not maintain the required number of days for their fuel stocks,” she said in a virtual briefing.

This comes as the Visayas grid has been placed under yellow alert status — indicating that the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement — for consecutive days due to the outage of several major plants since as early as 2021.

According to DOE Renewable Energy Management Bureau legal officer Gabriel Corpuz, 60 to 80 of the firms are in Luzon, around 20 in the Visayas, and around another 40 in Mindanao.

“Most of the violations were forced outages, prolonged deratings, and failure to deliver committed capacities,” he said.

Under a DOE Circular, companies are required to submit self-assessment forms. They are also required to submit an action plan should they be deemed deficient.

The Philippines, a net importer of fuel, has been in a state of national energy emergency since March due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. –NB, GMA News