The Alliance of Concerned Consumers in Electricity and Social Services (ACCESS) blamed generation companies for the increase in electricity rates.
According to a press release, electricity consumers were recently confronted by higher generation rates from power producers that was exacerbated by the complexities in the function of Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
ACCESS president Wennie Sancho said in the statement that these electricity woes is beyond the control of distribution utilities (DU’s) like Negros Power. The often-repeated justifications of the power producers on the increase in the demand for power supply is due to extreme heat.
However, according to former DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi in the Senate Committee hearing on energy, there is no problem on power supply. His presentation in fact proved that the cause of the red or yellow alerts is not the lack of power plants or a massive increase in electricity use due to summer heat, but rather the unreliability of several existing power plants which went on planned and unplanned outages and derating in total capacity unavailable due to these faulty plants.
Sancho said that increases in electricity rates were caused by the generation plants and not by the distribution utilities.
He cited former ERC chairperson Devanadera who explained in the House Committee hearing that, as power plants get older, even with planned maintenance afforded to them, they cannot be as efficient as they were before.
ACCESS recommends that ERC and DOE should assess the feasibility of retiring these unreliable and obsolete coal plants that have been experiencing recurring outages on an annual basis.
As for the generation companies, while the rule on allowable outages is straightforward, there is still no generation company that has been held accountable for protracted outages, especially during the summer season. This is gross incompetence on the part of DOE which is mandated to ensure reliable and quality supply of electric power and ERC which should ensure generating plants strict observance of allowable outages, he said.
DOE is still working closely with the Philippine Competition Commission to probe a possible collusion in the power plants shutdown. ERC said they are already conducting an investigation on a pricing play in the WESM, Sancho claimed.*
