ERC told to impose stricter penalties for power outages

THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) must impose stronger penalties against generators exceeding the limitation for allowable number of power plant outages, think tank Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) said.

This comes after a yellow alert was raised over the Visayas grid on Wednesday due to forced outages of several power plants, making the first yellow alert this year.

A total of 681.1 megawatts (MW) were unavailable to the grid due to 20 power plants being placed on forced outage and 21 running on derated capacities.

ICSC said that the ERC should impose stronger penalties for violations of allowable outage limits “to reinforce operational discipline among generators.”

“Despite being in the cool season, when demand is typically lower, the Visayas grid continues to experience reliability problems driven largely by unplanned outages among baseload power plants, particularly coal-fired facilities,” the group said.

“This underscores a deeper vulnerability in the system, where supply adequacy remains fragile even under relatively favorable demand conditions,” it added.

Several power plants were already offline for scheduled maintenance under the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines’ Grid Operating and Maintenance Program (GOMP).

The unavailable capacity was then triggered by the unplanned outages of two major coal-fired power plants.

“With peak demand reaching 2,284 MW, this represents around 38% of peak demand, a significant shortfall occurring not during extreme heat or peak consumption, but during a period of relatively low demand,” ICSC said.

The group said that the persistent issue in low power reserves stem from the country’s “overreliance on coal.”

“To mitigate these risks, energy stakeholders must act with urgency. Strict compliance with the GOMP is essential to minimizing unplanned outages and improving plant reliability,” it said.

Moving forward, ICSC said, the Philippines should continue diversifying the power mix by expanding renewable energy resources to reduce exposure to sudden outages of large baseload power plants.

“A more diversified and flexible generation portfolio will help ensure reliability even during periods of low electricity demand,” the group said. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera