Gatchalian wants DOE, PCC to check if there’s collusion among power plants

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Wednesday urged the Department of Energy and Philippine Competition Commission to investigate a possible collusion among power plants amid the outages which resulted to the thinning of reserves.

Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, said the price at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) has already spiked to P8 per kilowatt hour because of the series of the yellow alerts.

“In-assure kami ng DOE dito nung humingi kami ng briefing and on record during the hearing, na may enough supply. Of course ang caveat dun ay walang masisirang planta pero ang tanong bakit may nasirang planta," Gatchalian told reporters.

"We have to look at that because nag spike ang presyo to P8 sa WESM,” he added.

“We will now flag DOE and also PCC to look for possible collusion... Anlaki ng nawala sa sistema natin, 1400 megawatts is malaking capacity ‘yan out of the close to 13,000 megawatts here in Luzon. Close to 5 percent ng supply natin na nawala bigla,” he added. 

When the supply decreases, the price of electricity at the spot market naturally increases.

“Tataas ang WESM kasi lahat sila bibili ng WESM. Kapag tumaas ang WESM, tataas ang presyo ng kuryente natin kasi, like dito sa Meralco almost 10 percent ng kanilamg supply ay galing sa WESM, so bibili sila ng mas mahal ngayon,” Gatchalian said.

Gatchalian said he was not saying that indeed there was collusion does not say that there really is a collusion, adding that he wanted the cloud of doubt in the management of power plants to be removed.

“Itong recurring issue na baka mag collude para tumaas ang presyo, dapat mawala ‘yan and the power plants should submit a report to the DOE precisely kung anong nangyari bakit nawala ang 1400 megawatts of power,” Gatchalian said.

“It could be among themselves, among the power plants. I’m not saying may collusion but definitely, it needs an inquiry, ang laki ng nawalang supply,” he added.

When asked if there should be any concern over power supply during the election day, Gatchalian said that it was difficult to give an answer considering the thinning of reserves.

“That’s a very difficult question to answer, una, sasabihin ko sana hindi, looking at the reserves but looking also at the shutdown na 1400 megawatts, medyo naalarma ako kasi malaki ‘yan,  tumataas ang possibility na magkaroon tayo ng brownout sa election,” Gatchalian said.

He said the primary concern of DOE was to ensure that there would be no power interruption on May 13.

“Siguraduhin nila na may kuryente tayo sa eleksyon or else that would create a lot of tension during the election day,” Gatchalian said.

Earlier in the day, DOE said the Luzon power grid has been placed under red alert or a system condition when there is zero ancillary services or a generation deficiency exists.

Despite the alerts, the DOE said it does not expect any power interruption because there are 174.6 megawatts available under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) within the Manila Electric Co. franchise area.

"The distribution utilities, specifically MERALCO, have already notified the ILP participants to activate their self-generating facilities (SGFs) during the mentioned intervals which resulted to the de-loading of 174.3 megawatts," it said. —NB, GMA News