As consumers in the Luzon grid are seen bracing for vicious summer ordeal of threatening electricity service disruptions, the Department of Energy (DOE) has been asked to strictly enforce a "no maintenance outage" policy on power plants during the critical periods, chiefly on the summer months when demand peaks due to sweltering weather.

Senate Committee on Energy Vice Chairman Sherwin T. Gatchalian primarily prodded the energy department “to ensure that no maintenance shutdown of existing power plants will happen during the peak months to prevent any red alert status which causes rotational brownouts” in the energy-starved Luzon grid.

The DOE previously apprised media that based on the power supply-demand outlook it mapped out, there could just be dozen occurrences of yellow alerts that could distress the Luzon power system, but it had not seen the grid wobbling into red alert or for it to tumble into power outages or brownouts.

A "red alert condition" in the power grid signifies extremely thin or roughly zero reserves in the power system that a forced outage of any single major electric generating facility could trigger rotational blackouts.

However, the department qualified that its projections on forced outages of power plants had just been pegged at 500 to 600 megawatts on average, which could be debunked as history showed that the worst state of unplanned outages had been taking out 2,500 to 3,500MW of capacities from the system when there are simultaneous unplanned shutdowns of generating plants. Such episodes resulted in power system emergencies.

Beyond averting untimely maintenance downtime of power facilities, Gatchalian also called on the DOE “to ensure that the expected entry of additional 1,196 megawatts of power supply will be realized during the first half of this year to prevent power interruptions during the summer months.”

He stressed that “a steady power supply is critical for the country to sustain its economic growth as it is anchored on our capacity to provide electricity supply when and where it is needed. Thus, the government must ensure that any additional requirement will be met with sufficient supply.”

In a well-structured and efficiently functioning power system, energy planning won’t typically integrate power facilities that are still on commissioning into the power supply-demand equation, because doing so manifests a perceptible “energy insecurity” of a country.

Power plant investments in the past administration practically stagnated, therefore, the biggest headache of addressing the major power grid’s supply predicaments had been passed on to current Energy Secretary Raphael P.M. Lotilla.

Gatchalian further asserted that “while the energy department already flagged possible 12 yellow alerts between March and November this year, it needs to ensure that the expected additional supply is attained before demand peaks during the summer months.”

Additional saving grace to the country’s tightrope walk when it comes to power supply would be encouraging consumers to aim for seismic behavioral shifts by enthusiastically embracing energy efficiency and conservation as part of their daily lives.