Consunji-led Sem-Calaca Power Corporation (SCPC) will file an appeal with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on the penalties imposed by the regulator on the "forced outages" logged by its 600-megawatt Calaca coal-fired power plant in Batangas.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), the company emphasized that it has not formally received yet the ERC ruling that had meted penalties on its electric generating units to the tune of P4.312 million for alleged excessive unplanned shutdowns of the facility last year.

“While SCPC has not received a copy of the official resolution, it intends to appeal this decision by filing a motion for reconsideration with the ERC,” the company stressed.

In the ruling of the ERC, it was stipulated that the generating unit 1 of the Calaca plant breached allowable forced outages by 5.24 days; while for its unit 2, unplanned downtimes had gone beyond 92 days.

In evaluating the forced outages of the plant’s generating units, the ERC conveyed that it had done "virtual inspection" of the facility and required SCPC to submit its explanation for the recorded forced outages in the plant.

As stated in the ERC ruling, SCPC received the show cause order (SCO) issued by the regulatory body on June 29 last year; and it was able to submit its "verified explanation" in writing within the prescribed 10-day period or on July 9, 2021.

For the longer outages suffered by its generating unit 2, in particular, the power plant owner and operator cited the delay of arrival of foreign technical consultants that were needed to do the warranted repair work at an equipment that suffered technical glitch – and that delay was mainly attributed to the Covid-19 restrictions being enforced in the country last year.

SCPC also raised that “based on the submitted documents and interviews during the virtual inspection, the ERC task force concluded that the outage report is valid.”

The power firm further argued that “the boiler tube leaks and other boiler-related damages in unit 1 that resulted in repeated unplanned outages are considered unavoidable.” It also pleaded that such incidents at its facility be classified as "force majeure" events.

The ERC, nevertheless, debunked the explanation provided by the generation company and ruled on imposing penalties on the forced outages of the two Calaca generating units.

The regulatory body has penalized a number of generation companies last year for excessive "forced outages" registered by their power facilities, that triggered rotational blackouts agitating consumers during the summer months.