Outage, price surge probe starts
This was aggravated by the increased demand for electricity due to warmer temperatures
State regulator Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has started a probe on generation companies’ (gencos) unplanned outages and the recent spikes in prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
“We have been monitoring the activities of the gencos, especially those that underwent unplanned outages, that caused the thinning of power supply in the Luzon grid,” ERC chair and CEO Agnes Devanadera said on Monday.
“This was aggravated by the increased demand for electricity due to warmer temperatures. As a consequence, there has been sustained high prices in the WESM,” she added.
ERC has sent notices of non-compliance to gencos to explain the incurred cumulative unplanned outages beyond the maximum allowable unplanned outage days for 2021.
The regulatory body, in its Resolution 10 entitled “A Resolution Adopting the Interim Reliability Performance Indices and Equivalent Outage Days Per Year of Generating Units,” has set a cap for annual unplanned outages per generating plant technology.
Likewise, the ERC has identified generation companies that are not compliant with the reporting requirements under ERC Resolution 4 issued in 2015.
Out of the 2,083 incidents of unplanned outages during the period of January to April 2021, 1,288 incidents were reported.
On the other hand, for the 236 incidents on the planned outages, 220 were reported. The commission will be issuing show cause orders to the gencos who did not comply with the reporting requirements of ERC.
Task group formed
In April, the ERC has created a task force that will conduct a study on the power plant outages and resulting high prices in WESM.
The task force had identified the generation plants that will be prioritized for the conduct of technical inspection to verify the outages, including actions by the power plants to get back online.
ERC has sent notices of non-compliance to gencos to explain the incurred cumulative unplanned outages beyond the maximum allowable unplanned outage days for 2021.
With the imposition of the secondary price cap, which is a mitigating measure promulgated by the ERC to mitigate sustained high prices in the WESM, average price from 4 to 31 May was recorded at P7,841 per megawatthour (/MWh).
This could have been P11,263/MWh or 44 percent higher without the SPC, it noted.