Gatchalian asks DOE to prepare for Malampaya shutdown

By Alena Mae S. Flores – August 13, 2021 at 05:48 pm
from manilastandard.net

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday asked energy officials to ensure there will be no power outages when the Malampaya deep-water gas-to-power project goes on a 20-day maintenance shutdown in October.

Gatchalian said the Department of Energy should ensure that the Grid Operating and Maintenance Program would be followed to avoid a repeat of the unplanned and forced outages of power plants.

Gatchalian, chair of the Senate committee on energy, reiterated the need to ensure back-up plans as 30 percent of households in the country or 6.575 million residential customers are dependent on Malampaya.

“We’ve been assured that brownouts will not happen during the summer season and that there’s sufficient supply, yet power interruption still took place from May 31 to June 2. I do not wish to call them out on this for the second time in a matter of just four months,” Gatchalian said.

He said DOE made assurance on the availability of power supply and preparations such as alternative measures when the Malampaya gas field goes offline from Oct. 2 to 22.

“I don’t want to sound like a broken record but I need to reiterate, we cannot afford to have another round of rotational brownouts especially with more hospitals now burdened with rising numbers of COVID-19 patients and COVID-19 vaccines storage facilities need an uninterruptible supply of power. Also, students are about to start their online classes again,” Gatchalian said.

The senator recalled pronouncements made by DOE officials in a hearing by the Senate energy committee on April 27 that no power interruption would take place from the months of April to June this year.

When some parts of Luzon were hit by rotating brownouts due to surge in demand brought about by higher heat index, Gatchalian called out the DOE to explain why their projections were off.

“There’s ample time to prepare for any eventuality. We expect the DOE to exhaust all means to ensure the continuity of flow of electricity to our homes and even avert hikes in electricity rates if the supply strain could be addressed ahead of time,” he said.