Red alert may still be raised until next week —DOE exec

An official of the Department of Energy said Friday a Red alert could still be raised until next week but expressed hope that there will be no rotational brownouts in Luzon for the rest of June.

During a congressional hearing, DOE's Electric Power Industry Management Bureau director Mario Marasigan presented the Luzon power outlook for the month of June.

"'Yung end of this week hanggang next week, nakikita na kung walang makakapasok na planta, below the red line pa rin tayo. So kulang pa rin 'yung ating reserves... magkakaroon pa rin tayo ng red alert," Marasigan said.

(At the end of this week until next week, we see no power plant to come in so we will remain below the red line. There are still insufficient reserves, so a red alert will still be raised.)

"Hopefully pagpasok ng mga susunod na linggo, up to July 1, magkaroon na tayo ng mga planta na papasok at bababa na rin ang ating konsumo kung kaya’t matatawid natin 'yung red alert, hindi na tayo magkakaroon ng rotational brownout pero nasa yellow alert pa rin tayo," he added.

(Hopefully in the following weeks until July 1, more plants will come in and we will be able to lower our consumption. We hope that there will no longer be rotational brownouts despite the yellow alert.)

The DOE is looking into a possible “sabotage” and is considering the filling cases against power plant operators following the three consecutive days that the Luzon grid was put under Red alert due to the outages of several power plants.

According to the agency, it is still collating information about the matter but it already tapped the Energy Regulatory Commission and the Philippine Competition Commission to also look into the alleged sabotage.

But in an interview with dzBB, PCC commissioner Johannes Bernabe said it has yet to uncover evidence that would support allegations of collusion or 'cartelistic behavior' among power plants.

"Meron tayong konting nakikita pero hindi siya sapat na nasu-support ng hard evidence para sabihin ng meron talaga [na collusion]," he said.

(We've been seeing signs but they aren't supported by hard evidence to prove that there is indeed collusion.)

A series of Red and Yellow alerts plagued the Luzon grid for three straight days, causing rotating power interruptions in various provinces as well as in Metro Manila.

The DOE blamed the “forced or unplanned outages of power plants and the lack of ancillary services owned or operated by the private sector.”—AOL, GMA News