ERC concerned over new plants

By Alena Mae S. Flores – May 12, 2019
from manilastandard.net

The Energy Regulatory Commission expressed serious concern over the high incidence of “young” power plants that went on forced outages from March 5 to April 25.

ERC chairperson Agnes Devanadera said power plants with ages from zero to five years had exceeded the number of outages of older or aging plants or those 26 to 30 years old.

“This is very interesting…because 0 to 5 [years] far exceeded the 26 to 30 years, but if you make it to 16 to 30, that’s 62 percent of the entire [outages].  The zero to 5 is disturbing,” Devanadera said.

Power plants aged 16 years and above accounted for 62 percent of the outages, data showed.

“For plants aged 26 to 30, it is easy to say it might be wear and tear but for others, especially zero to 5, we are looking at the reasons they prepared for the outage,” ERC spokesman Floresinda Digal said.

The ERC  summoned energy stakeholders to explain the outages but the power generators said even the young plants had to undergo “break in.”