Senator Win Gatchalian urged the Department of Energy to ensure that the maintenance of natural gas plants is on track and a scheduled shutdown of such plants is not extended.

The vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, Gatchalian made the call following the DOE’s announcement that the South Premiere Power Corp. and Excellent Energy Resources, Inc., jointly owned by Meralco PowerGen, San Miguel Global Power, and Aboitiz Power, will shut down the facilities over the weekend.

“We recognize that preventive maintenance is critical to deter unplanned downtime, which adversely affects businesses and inconveniences energy consumers. We are hoping that the DOE would be able to ensure that this activity would not cause undue loss of power,” he said.

According to Gatchalian, the DOE should closely monitor the situation to ensure that preventive maintenance activities are completed on time.

The senator also echoes the DOE’s call for consumers to practice energy efficiency and conservation as a regular habit in order to help shore up the available energy supply and prevent power interruptions. In addition, such conservation efforts would also generate savings for consumers.