Legislators assured on PH power grid security

Some senators have expressed concern about the security of the Philippine power transmission network.

“We need to know for certain if our energy systems and infrastructure fully remain in Filipino control and if we have implemented the technical safeguards needed to prevent foreign interference in or sabotage of our national electricity grid,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros said as she filed a Senate resolution for a legislative inquiry.

It appears their concern is due to the investment of the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) in the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) which operates and manages the national power grid.

NGCP President and Chief Executive Officer Antonio L. Almeda, however, said there is nothing to be alarmed about this stake of SGCC as it has only a 40 percent share in the National Grid Corporation, with 60 percent held by Filipino companies Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp. and Calaca High Power Corp. “SGCC serves only as technical adviser of the consortium. The management and control of NCCP, including system operation, is exclusively exercised by Filipinos,” Almeda pointed out.

NGCP has exclusive right to manage and operate the power transmission system until 2033. It employs more than 5,000 Filipino workers all over the country to assure stable, cheap, and continuous energy transmission.

“The system that controls the grid is operated only by authorized Filipino experts of NGCP,” Almeda stressed. Biometric access controls allow only authorized NGCP personnel to enter the data center. The work stations and servers are secured by firewalls and layers of authentication systems to block unauthorized access, he added.

“We would be happy to welcome our senators and congressmen as well as an independent third party to visit our facilities in order to dispel any security concerns that have been raised these past few days, the NGCP executive said. Among the legislators who have already done so are Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian on August 18, 2016, and Rep. Baby Arenas and Rep. Danilo Suarez on March 21, 2017, he said.

The NGCP recently announced that it has set aside ₱463 billion in fresh capital for the modernization and expansion of the power grid in the next 10 years, bringing its total investment to ₱651 billion in the past ten years. It has built 5,626 transmission structures and 2,472 circuitkilometers of transmission lines and installed 10,978 megavolt-amperes of substation capacity. It is now in the process of completing the largest infrastructure in the history of the country – the Mindanao-Visayas interconnection project,

In all this operation and expansion, Almeda assured, the NGCP has maintained the technical safeguards needed to prevent any foreign interference in its operations.