NGCP not solely to blame for Panay blackout – Chiz

MANILA, Philippines —  The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) is not solely to blame for the Panay power outage, Sen. Francis Escudero said, adding that power plants also failed in ensuring the island’s power supply.

Escudero said calls to revoke NGCP’s franchise due to its lapses as the country’s sole grid operator should not be used to threaten other franchise holders.

“I don’t think we should be too ‘light handed’ about franchise revocations. Lest it is perceived as a sword of Damocles hanging over all franchise holders whenever they do something wrong or displease the powers that be,” Escudero said.

During the Senate hearing into the outage on Wednesday, Escudero said the unscheduled maintenance of the power plants also contributed to the disconnection of Panay from the Visayas grid, and that other stakeholders in the power transmission grid were also a fault.

“I prefer a more sober method of exacting accountability on those that may be found liable and, more importantly, to find solutions to prevent similar situations,” Escudero said.

“For me, the NGCP (given its delayed projects) shares the blame; Palm Concepcion Power Corp. for shutting down without following the grid code values; government for not monitoring, supervising and penalizing power plants; and NGCP given its nature as an oligopoly and monopoly; and updating of the grid code in order to more accurately reflect the needs of the industry,” he said.

Meanwhile, the NGCP, while insisting it complied with grid protocols, offered yesterday the utilization of “nuclear” energy to prevent a repeat of the three-day blackout in Western Visayas shortly after the New Year.

“We adhered to the data and protocols explicitly outlined in our Philippine Grid Code,” president Anthony Almeda told lawmakers who attended the hearing of the House of Representatives’ committee on energy headed by Rep. Lord Allan Velasco of the lone district of Marinduque.

“We support the green energy initiative of government, but we ask the green baseload technologies like Baseload Nuclear be explored. We want to be part of the solution, but NGCP cannot do it alone,” Almeda said.

“We need the cooperation of stakeholders and the whole of government, to ensure the stability of transmission services that will support the reliable power supply for Filipinos. We need generation, plus transmission and distribution. Power in and power out,” he explained further.