THE National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) gave assurances that its power transmission system is secure from any attempt to shut it down.
NGCP Assistant Vice President and spokesman Cynthia Alabanza allayed concerns that the State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) can remotely shut down the system in case the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China escalates further.
SGCC has a 40-percent stake in NGCP.
Alabanza said the NGCP has a stand-alone system and is not connected to the internet.
"One of the things that we have to understand is, for us to be controlled remotely, you have to be connected to some internet system," she said during a roundtable with The Manila Times on Monday.
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Grid matters Cynthia Alabanza, assistant vice president of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, discusses the state of the energy grid with Ben Kritz, columnist of The Manila Times, on Monday, June 19, 2023. PHOTO BY J. GERARD SEGUIA
"Our corporate system, the system that operates our corporate email, that's connected to the internet. But the system that runs the operations of the transmission grid is by default disconnected from any virtual private network," she said.
Anyone who wants to disable the system has to go through a lot of security measures, Alabanza said.
"You have to disconnect each breaker, and that's something that can't be done with one button. That's what we've been trying to explain, that the transmission system is a complex network, comprising almost 20,000 circuit kilometers of lines and more or less 200 substations all over the country. And those have to be disconnected. There is no single shut off button," she said.
Several lawmakers have called on the government to review the franchise of NGCP, following the recently recurring outages in Luzon, and to address the issues of ownership.
Sen. Mary Grace Poe, chairman of the Senate public services committee, said the outages should not be a norm.
"We will thoroughly scrutinize the performance of NGCP, and see if it has remained faithful to its signed franchise or if violations have been committed," Poe said in a statement.
Alabanza said the NGCP recently signed an agreement with the National Intelligence Coordination Agency (NICA) to prevent cyberattacks on the country's energy infrastructure.
Sen. Ana Theresia "Risa" Hontiveros is not convinced that the NGCP is fully protected from a Chinese cyberattack.
"How can you protect [the NGCP] from the outside if the threat is inside? The fact that China has control over the NGCP continues to worry me. The firewall is nonsense if the Great Wall is here," Hontiveros said in a statement.
Sen. Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito has also urged the government to regain full control over NGCP.
"This is a cause of concern. On a personal note, what if we'll have a misunderstanding with China? The Philippines may be paralyzed in just one switch because of NGCP. It can paralyze and cripple our economy," Ejercito said.
Alabanza stressed that security measures are already in place and that the best thing they need to do is mitigate the issues.
"That's why we have invested so much in security measures, both for the operating network, which runs the transmission grid, as well as the corporate network," she said.
Alabanza reiterated that the corporation has no special partnership arrangement with China.
"It wasn't like a negotiated or a special contract given to the consortium that ended up incorporating itself into the NGCP," she said.
Alabanza said the government wanted to privatize the National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) to pay off energy-related debts.
"So at that time, there was also a requirement for foreign technical partners. After four rounds, there were three failed biddings, and it was only in the fourth bidding that they reached the price that they needed," she said, referring to the entry of CCGC as a stakeholder.
She said all the prior bidders had foreign technical partners, and it was a financial and technical consideration that NGCP ended up partnering with the Chinese-owned grid.
She said the bidding for the partnership was done publicly and openly.
The NGCP said in a statement that it continues to upgrade its substation facilities.
Many of the projects were implemented from 2016 onwards, but have not yet received provisional approval from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
It said it proceeded with the projects because "our priority has and will always be doing what is best for the public. Financial considerations can take a back seat and be threshed out later."
"We hope to correct the impression that the consumers are somehow shortchanged with how rates are computed. Our commitment has never wavered: we serve the public, and we work within the legal and regulatory framework of our concession and franchise," the NGCP said.
Since taking over transmission operations in 2009, the NGCP said it has invested P3.289 billion in upgrading 15 of its substations and converter stations to increase load growth.
It said it replaced 33 aging transformers that were installed before the grid was privatized.
The company also procured four mobile transformer units worth P612 million that can be installed in less than 36 hours to restore power to specific localities.
FROM: THE MANILA TIMES