By Hannah Torregoza

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Sunday said state energy regulators should be giving private power plants an ultimatum to ensure they would be able to commit to providing consumers sufficient electricity supply.

Gatchalian, chair of the Senate committee on energy, said that if private power companies cannot ensure supply of energy then it would be best to consider having the government take over this responsibility.

“We allowed the private sector to take over but they are still inconsistent, so I think it would have been better if we return the operations back to the government. This is our challenge to the private sector to fix this up,” Gatchalian said in an interview over Radio DZBB.

The senator made the suggestion following the red and yellow alerts in Luzon Grid this month and the rotational brownouts that are now being experienced as a result.

Gatchalian also said he was disappointed at the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) over its failure to hold these power plants administratively liable for their failures.

He pointed out that each time a power generators fail to commit, the distribution companies are forced to buy energy from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), thereby affecting consumers with higher electricity rates.

“The main issue here is that many plants are having outages and yet none of them are being penalized or held accountable. We are the ones suffering are consumers because we are the ones paying for higher electricity fees,” he lamented.