Power distributors should warn public of brownouts

The Energy Regulatory Commission warned private power distribution utilities to follow guidelines especially on giving notice to consumers 48 hours before the scheduled power outages.

ERC commissioner Oliver Butalid, in a recent forum with power consumers in Cebu, said that DUs should notify their consumers 48 hours before their scheduled power interruptions or face penalty for not following ERC guidelines.

"Private distribution utilities should notify their consumers 48 hours before the outage if it is a scheduled maintenance activity," he explained.

Butalid said that as a regulating body, the ERC can impose penalty on power utilities that do not follow the guidelines, except in some circumstances that they have no control like sudden technical problems and power supply shortage. "Utilities should be penalized for things that are within their control," he added.

Butalid made these comments after Cebu City councilor Nestor Archival questioned why consumers are being charged with high electricity rates but allegedly do not get the proper service due them.

The commissioner said that consumers are always among their top priority that is why they have required all the collection offices of DUs to have consumer welfare desks that would address the concerns of the power consumers.

He also said that customers who have complaints and are not satisfied with the service of their electric power providers should bring up their concerns before the CWD officers. "That is why we require all DUs to have CWDs where consumers could bring up complaints."

Butalid added that in cases wherein the consumers are not satisfied with the way their complaint is being handled and addressed, it is time that they forward their complaint to the ERC.

Further, he said that the ERC is now also considering the implementation of the same scheme to customer service, which is already implemented in other countries. Foreign countries implement guaranteed service payments, wherein DUs are mandated to pay customers if there are power outages.