Jun 17, 2024 - 18:15
By manilatimes.net

Hontiveros bucks impending power rate hike

SEN. Risa Hontiveros raised the need to disallow the impending hike in generation charges as she blamed the Department of Energy (DoE) for the power crisis in some regions.

The senator, in a statement on Monday, said the DoE and power companies «must not pass on the cost of their failures to consumers.»

«Making consumers pay for the failures of the energy sector sets a bad precedent. The upcoming power rate hike must be disallowed,» Hontiveros said.

Sen. Ana Theresia “Risa” Hontiveros

She said the DoE and power firms failed to prepare for the effects of El Niño on the operations of power plants which led to unplanned and forced outages of more than 30 plants.

This prompted the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to raise red and yellow alerts in the Luzon and Visayas grids.

This also caused the cost of electricity to shoot up in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market which is planned to be passed on by Meralco to consumers at a rate of at least P0.50/kWh (kilowatt per hour) in June if staggered or P0.80 to P0.90/kWh in one payment.

«They say crisis is opportunity. But power companies should not apply it in running their business and increase their sales by taking advantage of their consumers,» Hontiveros said.

She recalled that the Senate's investigation of the power crisis revealed several lapses, including the lack of a contingency plan on the part of DoE.

Hontiveros said the energy sector abandoned the use of the loss of load probability method to plan the country's power supply since the enactment of the Electricity Power Industry Reform Act.

The Senate inquiry also showed that the Energy Regulatory Commission lacked the ability to check the capacity of power plants. It revealed the «weak penalties» imposed on power players that do not fulfill their obligations.