Fake DOE letters to DFA caused delays in power plant maintenance works

By Myrna M. Velasco – August 30, 2021, 4:46 PM
from Manila Bulletin

Fake letters or correspondence sent by unscrupulous individuals to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) had caused delays in power plant maintenance activities that subsequently triggered this year’s rotational blackouts, according to the Department of Energy.

As explained by the energy department, those ‘forged communication’ had not been acted upon by the DFA, hence, the foreign consultants and experts needed by the power plant owners for their maintenance activities were not able to arrive in the country or have experienced travel delays.

For more than a year, the DOE is being quizzed on why it wasn’t able to act on those requests of the generation companies (GenCos) for coordination with the DFA – especially so since the entry of technical experts for the maintenance downtime schedule of power plants; as well as completion of power projects, had not been immediately addressed.

“What we gathered was the delay was caused by some characters who were faking letters from the DOE – that’s why there were delays with the DFA,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella said.

Because of those unwarranted incidents and for that problem to be fixed, he noted that there is now direct coordination between the Office of the DOE Secretary and that of the DFA Secretary.

“That’s already addressed because there’s already direct representation from the Office of the Secretary to the Department of Foreign Affairs,” Fuentebella stressed.

In this year’s summer months, Filipino consumers had been punished with double whammy of power service interruptions and rate hikes – and the power plant owners and operators tossed the blame to the DOE for not acting early enough on their requests for the travel of their foreign consultants who were supposed to oversee repair and maintenance of their electric generating facilities.

Presently, the DOE is also being nudged on a realistic scenario on the country’s power supply-demand outlook – especially on the scheduled shutdown of the Malampaya gas production facility on October 2-22 this year; as well as in the May 2022 elections.

Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi assured that there will be sufficient power supply on next years’ elections, but many stakeholders in the power sector are not taking his words seriously, primarily because there had been several instances when the DOE had been wrong on its projections.

Still, Fuentebella insisted that Luzon grid in particular will be safe and will have sufficient electricity supply during the scheduled shutdown of the Malampaya field in October.

“As far as the months of September, October, November and December, even up to February, we have sufficient supply…our reserves will be on surplus mode,” he added.

On power supply during the election period, he qualified that “we still have to meet and come up with scenarios upon submission of the generation companies and upon collation by the system operator – so that’s as far as toward the election is concerned.”