President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday, Jan. 15, held the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) accountable for the power crisis that hit Western Visayas this week.
Panay experienced blackouts while numerous power outages hit Negros Occidental starting Tuesday, January 2.
“Accountability lies with the NGCP, they are tasked with grid stability. Stability involves proactive responses…a duty that NGCP unfortunately has not fulfilled adequately,” Marcos said in a video message.
“We will work diligently to ultimately resolve the situation and prevent such crisis in the future. Our commitment is to the wellbeing and prosperity of every Filipino”, Marcos assured.
He said “while power has been restored the situation has caused significant hardship to our people crippling businesses, compromising livelihoods and endangering those in need of health care.”
This has caused huge losses to businesses since January 2, he said.
“The NGCP had a crucial two-hour window to prevent the system collapse as highlighted by the Independent Market Electricity Operator of the Philippines…Regrettably during this period NGCP failed to resort to manual load dropping resulting in the crisis that we are facing now,” he said.
The president pointed out that this is not the first time that such a blackout has occurred.
In April of 2023 a similar incident happened in Panay prompting an examination of NGCP’s performance, he said.
“It revealed the importance of completing the Panay-Negros-Cebu interconnection by August of 2023. The NGCP has assured us that the Visayas has sufficient capacity assuming the timely completion of the Mindanao-Visayas and Panay-Negros-Cebu interconnections,” he said.
However, “we find ourselves in January 2024 far from the promised completion date of August 2023 and we are still hoping for the Mindanao-Visayas interconnection by late January of 2024”, he said.
“NGCP’s failure to act during the crucial two-hour window is a missed opportunity. As a systems operator NGCP must proactively engage with distribution utilities and cooperatives to manage loads and prevent such system collapses,” he said.
Marcos reiterated his call that he made last year for NGCP to be transparent to its stakeholders, utilities and regulators, to acknowledge its responsibility and be transparent in identifying weaknesses in transmission systems.
They must identify and address these issues as they are crucial for a resilient and stable power infrastructure, he said.
Marcos directed the ERC “to complete the reset of NGCPs rates without further delay to ensure NGCPs compliance with its statutory and regulatory obligations and to defend in no uncertain terms against any attempt to defer, delay or prevent the implementation of regulatory measures”.
HOUSE PROBE
The House Committee on Energy is expected to hold a hearing next week on the recurring power outages in Western Visayas, Rep. Jose Francisco “Kiko” Benitez (Neg. Occ., 3rd District) said Friday.
“The recurring power outages suggest that there has not been enough effort from NGCP to ensure contingencies are properly in place,” Benitez said.
The hearing is being held to find ways “to stop the grid from tripping”, he added.
NGCP DENIAL
Meanwhile, NGCP in a statement issued Friday said its mandate is confined to transmission of power from producers to grid-connected areas of the country.
As the transmission service provider, NGCP can only give an overview of the current supply and demand situation and endeavor to dispatch any and all available power. It cannot intervene on matters concerning power generation, it said.
“We reiterate our earlier pronouncements that there was no transmission disturbance before the tripping of the Panay Energy Development Corporation Unit 1 (83MW) at 12:06 p.m. (January 2). After this event, NGCP was able to recover the transmission system and normalize voltage. This normal voltage situation persisted until several power plants inexplicably tripped at 2:19 p.m. Data from our system shows no abnormality in voltage and system stability,” it said.
Despite this, critics persist on blaming NGCP for what are clearly problems arising from the unplanned shutdowns of power generators, NGCP said.
“We are firm in our position that the system prior to the multiple tripping was normal, and our actions were undertaken within protocols. Any contrary statement is speculative,” it added.
“We firmly refute allegations suggesting that NGCP failed in its obligation to stabilize the transmission system. We also take exception to the allegations that we were less than transparent in providing information to the public,” it said.
“Rather than using NGCP as a scapegoat, we urge policymakers to be objective in their search for facts and not coddle certain sectors. This is not a time to push personal or political agendas, but a time for honest-to-goodness solution finding. We again reiterate our push for a comprehensive industry-wide approach to resolve the persistent power supply issues on Panay Island and elsewhere in the country,” it said.
NGCP assured stakeholders that it will continue to work closely with concerned government agencies and LGUs to expedite the resolution of the power outages issue.*