Human Rights Online Philippines

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) declared that it will not lift restrictions for periods allotted for maintenance shutdowns and forced outages of power plants. The ERC will be reevaluating current limits for different technologies but have emphasized that removal of the restrictions is not viable.

The Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ) welcomes the ERC’s decision to maintain restrictions on outages. However, the regulatory body’s excessive allowance of forced outages for fossil fuel power plants is unwarranted and violates consumer rights. It legitimizes forced outages by allowing unreliable plants to operate, and negates the promises of EPIRA and privatization to make plants efficient.

The outage limit is necessary to ensure that power generators will be able to provide consistent power to the grid. It also prevents price abuses from generators whose power plants break down frequently, such as coal plants reaching the end of their life span.

The number of forced outages allowed by ERC shows the inefficiency of these power plants. It is bad for the energy industry and consumers, and will deter investors. The higher number of outage days allotted for fossil fuel power plants compared to renewables also implies ERC’s bias against RE technologies.

We urge ERC to tighten restrictions on outages and price caps to ensure that consumers are always protected and foster a competitive market and efficient power plants. With the current limits, generation companies still get away with price abuse. Consumers have paid more during extended outages, despite disruptions to their daily life.

Stricter regulations are necessary as the climate crisis worsens. Stronger storms mean more frequent outages, and consumers should not have to pay for more than the damages already caused by these power plant’s use of dirty and deadly fossil fuels.

The Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (PIPPA) petitioned to lighten penalties on power outages and lift restrictions on the secondary price cap earlier in January 2024. PMCJ is one of the organizations that attended the public consultations for Visayas and Mindanao to put forward the interests of consumers.

We call on ERC to immediately audit these fossil fuel plants and enforce the retirement of old, inefficient ones now. Allowing these inefficient coal plants to operate is counter to the objectives of EPIRA and privatization.