THE Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) imposed fines worth P15.5 million on power generation companies that breached the maximum allowable unplanned outage days in 2021. 

“We are constantly monitoring and reviewing the weekly reports being submitted by the GenCos in compliance with our directive pertaining to the Reliability Performance Indices and Equivalent Outage Days Per Year of Generating Units. This is one of the mechanisms devised by the Commission to ensure that GenCos do not unnecessarily go on an unplanned outage, especially during the summer months when there is surge in power demand and reserves get used up,” ERC Chairperson and CEO Agnes VST Devanadera said in a media release on Friday. 

Earlier this week, ERC said it fined Sem-Calaca Power Corp. (SCPC) P4.31 million after it ruled that the power plant’s units allegedly breached the maximum allowed unplanned outages. 

It said SCPC was fined P337,200 for allegedly exceeding the number of allowed unplanned outages by 5.24 days for its power plant’s first unit and P3,975,600 for going over the number of allowed unplanned outages by 96.2 days for the second unit. 

In Article 5 of ERC’s Resolution No. 10, Series of 2020, 16.8 days is the allowed duration of unplanned outages for a pulverized coal-fired power plant per generation unit per year. 

SCPC said it will appeal the commission’s decision. — MCL 

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