MANILA, (PIA) -- Senator Win Gatchalian is seeking a Senate inquiry into the persistent red and yellow alerts attributed to the insufficiency of energy supply available to the grid amid hotter-than-usual weather conditions in the country caused by the El Niño weather aberration.

“The persistent problem of insufficient electricity supply suffered by Filipinos requires a comprehensive solution from all electric power industry participants,” the Senator emphasized as he filed Proposed Senate Resolution No. 1018.

The vice-chairperson of the Senate Committee on Energy emphasized that the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), as the primary regulators of the electric power industry, should spearhead concrete actions to be taken by all stakeholders to address the insufficiency of supply with short, medium, and long-term solutions.

Such solutions should include measures to ensure that generation companies comply with the highest standards, practices, methods, and procedures generally followed or approved in the electric power industries including ERC’s reliability index, Gatchalian said. Solutions could also integrate full implementation of Republic Act 11258, also known as the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, including demand side management, he stressed.

Gatchalian noted that since April 16, yellow alert warnings for 48 interval hours and red alert warnings for at least 34 interval hours have been issued by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), indicating either thinning reserves or insufficient power supply against grid demand.

The issuance of such alert warnings has been caused by forced outages of at least 44 generation units, 21 of which are hydropower plants that have been out of operation due to low water levels caused by El Niño. Also, at least 14 generation units across the country were operating at derated capacities due to low water supply, poor coal quality, and gas supply issues.

Both conditions led to a loss of more than 2000 megawatts (MW) of power, causing power interruption in at least 12 franchise areas as well as a 35 percent increase in the average price of electricity on the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the Luzon grid, rising to P8.51 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from 6.30 kWh in the previous week. The average WESM price in the Visayas grid also increased by 13 percent to P9.02 kWh from P7.98 kWh in the previous week, he said.

“The effect of El Niño is not something new to us. We shouldn’t settle for knee-jerk solutions every time we have a spike in demand due to weather-related disturbances,” he added. (PIA-NCR)