The Root Cause of Power Plant Shutdowns are not Technical But Contractual and Financial

2 May 2019

POSITION PAPER ON LONG TERM SOLUTIONS FOR STABLE POWER SUPPLY

MatuwidnaSingilsaKuryente Consumer Alliance Inc.

Submitted to:

The Joint Congressional Power Committee

Hon. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian

Hon. Carlos Uybarreta, Congressman, 1Care Party-list

Public Hearing May 2, 2019

Dear Sirs:

We thank the JCPC for this opportunity to contribute to the national debate on what to do to avoid power shortages that hound our country almost always before Christmas and before the summer.

The MatuwidnaSingilsaKuryente Consumer Alliance Inc or MSK is an association of Meralco consumers since 2011 dedicated to seeking regulatory and policy reforms to protect consumers from excessive electric rates that result from exploitive charges, anti-competitive behavior, monopoly, oligopoly, and contracting manipulations, and cartelization and negotiated sister company sweetheart deals.

Once or twice a year we are confronted by power shortages due to power plants supposedly shutting down due to mechanical problems and or need for preventive maintenance.
We would like the authorities to consider the following for the long term solutions to this recurring brownouts.

1. Who is responsible? Looking at the wrong alley, barking up the wrong tree.

First of all, we would like to make the observation that in the debate on who is responsible for insuring that power plants are reliably on line and do not mysteriously shutdown due to “boiler leaks”, there seems to be inordinate focus on the Department of Energy, who although the policy and rule making body and responsible for monitoring and encouraging power supply, is not the contracting party with the power generator.
In the power plants that shutdown, Meralco is not sufficiently being asked to take responsibility to assure that their contracted supply, whose negotiated costs are being passed on to its customers, are reliably providing the generating service. Meralco is the one with contract enforcement capability and obligation to the public who is ultimately the one paying for the service.
In these public hearings, Meralco seems content on sitting back and exploiting the power crisis to justify the approval of their seven midnight power supply contracts.
We appreciate the valiant willingness of the Department of Energy officials to take the heat for any power crisis. However, we will not find the long term solutions if we keep on looking at the wrong alley, and barking up the wrong tree.

2. Insufficient Reserve and Need for Additional power supply

We agree with the calls for additional power supply. But we disagree that it should mean the automatic approval of the seven (7) midnight contracts totaling 3,551mw that Meralco negotiated with its sister company Meralco Power Gen.
While it is not an ideal resolution, we call on all parties, JCPC, DOE, ERC, Meralco, the Supreme Court, the Alyansa Para saBagongPilipinas, the Bayan MunaMakabayan Group, to come together in the national interest and break this impasse for a reasonable and not exploitive solutions.

a) Let us allow the implementation of about half of those projects of 1,750mw to come on line in 2021 and 2022. But with moderation of the negotiated rates and any onerous terms. Atimonan One is now P5.65 per kwh not the P3.75 it was advertised, higher than the current Meralco coal suppliers. ERC needs to moderate this in a compromise resolution.
b) The others of 1,750mw can be subjected to a true CSP, some of them for LNG fueled power plants.

c) We also call on the JCPC and DOE to sponsor separately truly competitive biddings for supply for distribution utilities outside Meralco. Ideally One coal and one LNG even modest 300mw each for supply to non-Meralco distribution utilities. This will have the added benefit of establishing market tested price benchmarks as opposed to the negotiated rates that Meralco has been trying to justify.

d) We are asking the JCPC, DOE, and ERC, to recognize the reality that in bringing least cost power to consumers, “competition always beats regulation”.

3. True Root Cause of Plant Shutdowns are Not Technical but contractual and financial

The additional supply will however still not guarantee that there will be no power shortages resulting from the unfortunate confluent shutdowns of power plants. Technical shutdowns are only symptomatic of the true reasons for the problems which is contractual and financial.

a. Contractual and Financial causes of shutdowns
Current power supply agreements provide for allowable downtimes per year of a total of 45 to 60 days. During these period, the power generators continue to be paid their capacity fees consisting of capital recovery and fixed overhead. This contractual arrangement therefore offer no financial benefit for the power generator to avoid or minimize downtimes. In fact it is to his convenience and financial benefit to maximize his allowable downtimes. This is an outdated provision from the BOT era in which we no longer are. BOO napotayo. (build operate and own).

And when the buyer (DU) and the seller generator are sister companies or business partners, we can predict it will be the customers who will be sacrificed.

Under this contractual provision, there is no reason for the power generator to make the needed investments to make his plant reliable and honestly avoid downtimes.
The result is these brownouts and it will not change unless this financial incentive and convenience is taken out.

b. We propose that the rate of the generator be restated to include compensation for downtime so that he will be paid only when his plant is available on line to provide the service. Some people will say it will increase the rate since the annual capacity fees will be spread over 10 months instead of 12. The average true cost to consumers would be the same.

c. Looking at the Meralco generation rates, customers are charged P5.40 per kwh during the operating periods of the coal plants, but are charged P7.00 to more than P10 per kwh during months with maintenance shutdowns. In the period from July to December 2018, Meralco had paid these coal plants as high as P18 per kwh which indicated that they were on maintenance shutdowns. So here we are in April and those plants are still down for maintenance? (see matuwid.org and Meralco website data)

d. The added capacity payments for downtimes however should only be for half of the 60 day downtime agreement because the generator and the consumers should equally share in the risks of downtimes. Why should the consumers absorb all those costs?
It will not result to higher true cost and will have the benefit of the generator being paid only when he is providing the service. No more incentives for being down.

e. Allowable downtimes should only be a legal excuse from delivering the contracted power service. However, it should not be used for guaranteeing capacity payments to the generator whose power plant is down. This is most unfair to the consumers and encourages downtimes.

We call on the DOE and ERC to consider this “no payment during downtime policy”. This is actually not being anti-generator but more like being fair to the consumers.

Until this is corrected, mysterious and confluent shutdowns will continue to hound the country.

We wish the JCPC more power in its search for solutions. We hope the JCPC, DOE, and ERC, will look into these proposed solutions.

Sincerely yours,

MatuwidnaSingilsaKuryente Consumer Alliance Inc.

David Celestra Tan
Co-Convenor

Evelyn Viray Jallorina
Executive Director

matuwid.org
david.mskorg@yahoo.com.ph