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The Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ) stood in opposition to the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association’s (PIPPA) petition to lighten penalties on power outages and to adjust price caps for electricity. The petition was discussed in the second public consultation held by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for ERC Case 2023-001. This second hearing was held online and was attended primarily by energy stakeholders in Visayas.

The Power for People Coalition (P4P), which PMCJ is part of, has already condemned this move by PIPPA. Groups feared that if the petition is approved, generation companies may use it to exact higher electricity prices on consumers while unscheduled power outages continue to disrupt communities and livelihoods.

According to the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC) in its  2021-2022 report, coal plants consistently dominated the outage mix heavily affecting the grid’s power supply. Out of 41 recorded instances where a power plant had an outage for more than a month, 27 of them were coal-fired, all with the same reason: forced outage.

“These are the same power plants that force consumers to pay more for their failure.” Estela Vasquez, PMCJ’s Visayas coordinator, pointed out that generation companies have a history of price abuse. “If these companies can already exploit loopholes to increase prices for consumers in times of crisis, what more if they amend the regulations to their favor?”

This petition coincides with efforts to phase out fossil fuels. “Power outages are becoming more frequent as old coal plants reach the end of their lifespan,” explained Erwin Puhawan, Luzon coordinator of PMCJ. “These power plants are failing. These corporations do not want to be held accountable, but they want to make easy money out of minimal effort at the expense of consumers.”

“This failure of the current power system shows why we need to shift to renewable energy” said Larry Pascua, PMCJ’s Senior Energy Campaign Officer. “We’re already faced with a climate crisis. Ordinary folks are bearing the brunt of climate change, like stronger storms and longer, more frequent power outages. The solution is building on the renewable energy infrastructure that we already have to make clean, reliable, and affordable energy available to consumers.”

Both petitions were submitted by PIPPA to suspend, repeal, amend, and modify the 2020 outages rules, and to change secondary price cap rules in the electricity spot market. It was first reviewed by the ERC on January 19, 2024.

PMCJ also attended the public consultation for the petition to amend the secondary price caps held earlier in the morning. The organization will issue its official statement on these proposals in the coming weeks.

FOR INQUIRIES

Raymond Ruedas (mediacommunications@climatejustice.ph) 09274382015

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