Napocor urged to adopt more reliable mechanism for ODPS

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) wants the National Power Corp. (Napocor) to establish a more reliable mechanism governing the One Day Power Sale (ODPS) to avoid sudden suspensions of the scheme.

PCCI president Donald Dee made the call as he expressed concern over recent ODPS suspensions which had adverse repercussions on power-intensive industries.

According to Dee, "ODPS grants discounts to companies. Hence, its suspension would impact negatively on power-intensive industries like cement and steel plants."

Dee is hopeful that the Napocor and Meralco would be able to immediately communicate with industries about planned suspensions.

"They should also be able to say when the ODPS can be implemented again," Dee added.

The PCCI president said the recent suspension of the OPDS was caused by the Sual power plant shutdown.

"I don’t know what’s taking them too long, but we are monitoring the situation," Dee said.

Approved by the Energy Regulatory Board, the ODPS scheme allows the discounted sale of Napocor’s unutilized capacity to self-generating customers, or companies which have their own power plants.

Under the scheme, Meralco handles the purchase of Napocor’s surplus capacity for distribution to big customers within its franchise area.

Industries, however, have been complaining of sudden ODPS cancellations which they claimed were forcing them to run their power plants without adequate preparation.

Worse, ODPS customers who were unable to operate their generator sets were hit by additional high demand charges which they claimed were unfair.

Due to the ODPS cancellations, industries alleged that suppliers like Napocor and Meralco are even benefiting financially through increased transmission charges because they have to pay more for their unplanned high electricity demand.

Industry estimates showed that that the cost of ODPS cancellations exceed P20 million per day.

Previously, the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) also called on the government to step in, stressing that the ODPS cancellations render their member-industries less competitive.