• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The House committee on energy will hold a briefing on Sept. 16 to examine the worsening condition of the Visayas power grid and the ancillary service charges being passed on to electricity consumers.
The briefing will be held at Conference Rooms 3 and 4 of the RVM Building at the House of Representatives in Quezon City.
The inquiry stemmed from House Resolution 1430 filed by Negros Occidental Third District Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez, seeking an investigation into the contracting, procurement, and financial settlement of power reserves in the Visayas.
Benitez raised concerns over the P1.04 per kilowatt hour ancillary reserve charge being imposed on retail consumers despite the grid’s repeated red alerts and prolonged rotational brownouts in some areas.
The resolution seeks to determine why consumers continue to pay for spinning and contingency reserves intended to ensure grid stability even as parts of the Visayas experience power interruptions lasting several hours.
Lawmakers are also seeking a full accounting of how the ancillary reserves were contracted, which companies were paid, and why the reserves have allegedly failed to provide reliable support during forced outages in recent months.
The committee, chaired by Palawan Second District Rep. Jose Alvarez, has invited representatives from the Department of Energy, National Electrification Administration, Energy Regulatory Commission, National Power Corporation, National Transmission Corporation, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, Philippine Electricity Market Corporation, and the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines.
These agencies are expected to explain the recurring yellow and red alerts in the Visayas and provide details on the ancillary services procured, deployed and billed to consumers.
The House inquiry is expected to scrutinize whether the existing ancillary service arrangements are providing the reliability and reserve capacity that consumers are paying for, particularly amid recurring power shortages and rotational brownouts across the region. | GPB
