13 power firms told to explain long plant outages

MANILA, Philippines — Regulators have ordered 13 power companies to explain prolonged plant outages blamed for blackouts and high electricity prices in the Visayas and Mindanao.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) issued the 24 show-cause orders (SCOs) to generation companies (gencos) whose generating units had breached allowable equivalent unplanned outage (EUO) limits.

The companies include those affiliated with power giants such as Aboitiz Power Corp., First Gen Corp., Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN), San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp. (SMGP) and Vivant Corp.

Among them are Aboitiz-backed Therma Mobile Inc., Therma Visayas Inc. and Cleanergy 9 Power Inc., as well as First Gen’s Energy Development Corp. and Bac-Man Geothermal Inc.

Also ordered to explain were MGEN’s Toledo Power Inc., Vivant’s Meridian Power Inc. and Excellent Energy Resources Inc., owned by MGEN, AboitizPower and SMGP.

Other companies issued SCOs include Belgrove Power Corp., Central Azucarera de San Antonio Inc., Republic Cement & Building Materials Inc. and Sunwest Water & Electric Co. 2 Inc., which is linked to former lawmaker Zaldy Co.

The ERC directed the concerned gencos to submit verified explanations addressing their reported non-compliance with applicable reliability performance standards.

Prior to the issuance of the SCOs, the agency had served notices of non-compliance with order to comply and explain on 25 gencos following outage events involving 48 generating units.