It’s the turn of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to be thrown into the chopping block, purportedly due to its lack of coordination with power producers and distribution utilities to properly communicate occurrence of rotating brownouts or any other problems in the power system.

Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (PIPPA) president Ernesto B. Pantangco primarily scored the system operator, as NGCP kept blaming some plants for generation deficiency in the system, but failing to look at the other factors contributing to the brownout predicaments of consumers.

“They are the ones who know precisely grid situation every hour, they should alert IPPs (independent power producers) if there is a problem,” he stressed.

The lack of communication and transparency are the same complaints lodged by utility firm Manila Electric Company (Meralco), stressing that NGCP will only advice of brownout occurrences minutes before they are about to implement load shedding.

On Monday, Luzon grid was plunged anew into one-hour rotating brownouts and NGCP readily pointed to gas plants on shutdown as the cause of the 332-megawatt deficiency in the system.

The reserves at the grid the day after though was at a healthier state of 773 megawatts, as available capacity reached a high of 7,780 MW as against peak demand of 7,007 after the gas plants have been brought back on-line.