COOP-NATCCO Party-list Rep. Felimon Espares (Contributed photo))

A ranking congressman has told the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to ensure that upcoming power plants are consistently accessible to the transmission grid for easier connectivity.  

COOP-NATCCO Party-list Rep. Felimon Espares issued the call after the DOE admitted during a House Committee on Legislative Franchises hearing Wednesday, Sept. 4 that it lacks control over power generation companies' decisions on the location of their plants. 

Energy Undersecretary Sharon Garin said the DOE only approves the project, but the owner has the decision on where to establish its power plant. 

”DOE approves, but it is an unregulated industry. May-ari ang nag-de-decide. Magpapaalam siya pero they also go through system impact studies (SIS) with NGCP,” Garin said, referring to the process to determine the capacity of the power grid to accommodate a new generator. 

Espares, chairman of House Committee on Ethics and Privileges, said the DOE and the ERC should work together to find a solution to this predicament, since making generators in sync with the transmission grid will help stabilize energy supply. 

“DOE and ERC should work on this,” said Espares, who hails from Panay. The province recently experienced a massive power outage that crippled the island for several days.  

“Malayo talaga source natin. Anything that happens in between, patay talaga tayo  Kung meron sa Panay or Negros advantage iyon para sa amin,” added the House Committee on Energy member. 

(Our source is really far. Anything that happens in between, we're really doomed. If there's one in Panay or Negros, that's an advantage for us), 

NGCP, for its part, said it completed 548 system impact studies (SIS), almost half of which were submitted between 2023 and 2024, less than the agreed period of 60 days. 

Meanwhile, APEC Party-list Rep. Sergio Dagooc recommended to the ERC to look into embedded generation, which is directly connected to distribution utilities (DUs) and not to the transmission grid.  

“ERC must study embedded generation to address the increasing load growth. Pataas nang pataas ang load growth, pero di napupunuan ang kailangan. Malaki ang discrepancy sa supply at demand na kapag di naagapan, puro red at yellow alert aabutin natin,” Dagooc said. 

(The load growth keeps going up, but can't fill in the need. If the great disparity between supply and demand isn't resolved, then expect to see a lot of red and yellow alerts.) 

"Dahil hindi ito totally connected sa distribution system, wala epekto sa transmission system kung babagsak ang embedded generation,” he added. 

(Since this isn't totally connected to the distribution system, the loss in embedded generation won't have any effect on the transmission system.) 

However, it was revealed that the ERC holds no available data on registered and unregistered embedded generators currently operating in the country.