A CONSUMER group on Tuesday asked the government to explain how it plans to solve the “vicious cycle” of power failures in Luzon and the Visayas region.
In a statement, Kuryente.Org asked what the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) was doing to upgrade its system backbone particularly on the main island of Luzon.
It should also update the public about critical infrastructure such as the Mindanao-Visayas interconnection project that could have unlocked excess capacity in Mindanao that could have helped Visayas and Luzon, it added.
“We at Kuryente.Org can see the same old script being rolled out all over again,” the group said. “NGCP will blame power plants, power plants will blame NGCP, and the government will blame everybody. We are even projecting a new round of congressional hearings again to discuss the same old seasonal issue we face every few months.”
The group asked which plants had forced shutdowns on Monday that led to the yellow and red alerts. “What happened to the ancillary services-competitive selection process which NGCP is supposed to roll out?”
“We are sick and tired of all these situations, as we, the consumers, cannot do anything but to watch these over and over again and suffer the impact of having no electricity,” it added. — NPA
