The Energy Regulatory Commission proposed new levels of outage allowance for unplanned and planned shutdown of power plants to monitor their reliability and promote the accountability of generation firms.
The ERC has come out with the draft proposed interim benchmark for reliability performance indices and equivalent outage days per year of generating units, which will still be subject to public hearings.
ERC said it decided to review the performance of the power plants after several yellow and red alert status were declared in the Luzon grid in April due to insufficient and depleted reserves amid high demand and unplanned outages of plant.
“Thus pursuing its mandate, the Commission reviews the performance of generating plants, particularly on outages, to address the need to set a standard on outage allowance of generating plants,” the regulator said.
The standards aim to determine the specific reliability performance of the grid, aid the power industry in evaluating reliability and availability, and promote accountability to achieve greater operation and economic efficiency of the power plants.