Eagle-eyed Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has stepped up investigation on the simultaneous unplanned shutdowns of habitually-delinquent power plants that plunged Luzon grid anew into "yellow alert" condition over the weekend.

Following the forced outages of at least seven generating units last Saturday, March 26, the regulatory body immediately required the power plant owners and operators to explain the cause of their facilities’ technical breakdown and when their capacities would be back into the grid.

The power generating facilities that had been on forced downtimes were GNPower Dinginin unit 1 coal-fired power facility that is jointly owned by the Aboitiz and Ayala groups; units 2, 3 and 4 of Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp (SLPGC) of the Consunji group; Units 1-4 of the Kalayaan hydro facility of CBK Power Company; unit 2 of the South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp that is owned by Ayala; and unit 2 of Sem-Calaca coal-fired plant of the Consunji group.

An initial report of the ERC stated that the GNPower Dinginin plant tripped on March 25 from 11:31pm due to “turbine balancing adjustment”. The GNPower plant was back on the grid the next day, March 26. Its 668-megawatt capacity is currently the biggest in Luzon grid.

SLPGC unit 2 also tripped due to “primary air fan A trouble” while the facility’s units 3 and 4 encountered “turbine lube oil sump metal chips.”

Further, the SLTEC plant unit 2 had high HP relative expansion; the Kalayaan plant had to be placed on shutdown because of ‘low water’ elevation; while the Sem-Calaca generating facility suffered generator stator ground fault.

The recurring forced outages of power plants had been a problem of the Philippine power sector for more than a decade already – the worst was in an election year of 2013 when spikes in prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) went beyond P5.00 per kilowatt hour, indicating that the country’s power system may not have really improved in the hands of the private sector.

When power plant companies are flagged on the repetitive cycle of their generating facility outages, they would always reason out that it is impossible for them to profit from it. However, when the subsequent financial results are finally published, there are always attribution to high WESM prices contributing to rise in revenues as well as overall income.

During the March 25-26 power plant outages, the Department of Energy (DOE) was quick to come to the defense of the power generators as it allayed fears of probable rotational blackouts during the summer months – and most especially in this year’s May 9 elections.

“Some power plants deliberately derate their units on weekends for them to conduct minor maintenance works without the need to shut down the plant,” the DOE statement said.

Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi noted that “as summer approaches, low water levels also result to derating or the unavailability of hydro plants. These have been considered in the scheduling of the maintenance activities of the power plants.”

The department argued that even if there was yellow alert in Luzon grid last Saturday, “there is still enough capacity in the system as it did not result to any power interruption.”

The DOE emphasized that as of Sunday, March 27,”most of the derated plants are already back to normal and the largest plant on outage has also already returned to service,” with the department adding that “we expect to have sufficient capacity in the system moving forward.”