AKO PDP Laban Party List Congressman Adrian ‘Momot’ Ebcas lashed out anew the persistent power fluctuations and rotational brownouts of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines or NGCP.
Ebcas calls out the NGCP and other concerned power utilities for accountability on the persistent rotational brown outs in the Visayas and Mindanao.
That said, the good congressman from Camiguin proposes to look into amending the Philippine Grid Code.
In his recent privilege speech at the House of Representatives, Ebcas reveals several instances where voltage magnitudes in the power grid were outside their allowable range of variation and voltage fluctuations that caused flickers way above the allowable limits that resulted in damages of facilities and curtailment of power distribution.
To put it simply, the instability and fluctuations in voltage cause rotational brown outs in coverage areas of electric cooperatives despite safety nets in the provisions of the Philippine Grid Code.
Why is it then that the violations of the code seems to be a norm in the industry?
Despite NGCP’s assurance of solutions, this problem remains unresolved and continues to worsen for two years since 2017, after the electricity infrastructures were destroyed by the earthquake in Leyte.
Ebcas cited two widespread power outages that occurred in Western Visayas two weeks ago, due to poor grid management.
This inaction could have been prevented if the Philippine Grid Code had “teeth” and therefore the need of amending the country’s grid code is paramount, and in fact urgent as it were.
For now, there is nothing to stop the system operator, in this case the NGCP, from not following what is in the grid code because quite simply, the code had no power to penalize the violators.
Ebcas calls on the NGCP and other agencies to resolve these issues without the need of amendments on the code, in the spirit of public service and accountability.
Ebcas is one of the four members of the House Power Bloc who are vocal champions of the rural electric cooperatives and member-consumer-owners nationwide. (ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com)
