By Norman Bordadora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
2:35 am | Saturday, March 24th, 2012
More electricity is being used in Mindanao than what the power distributors there have contracted to buy from power generators.
This was the crux of the energy problem in Mindanao, according to President Aquino who presided at a meeting with energy officials on the acute power shortage in Mindanao which has been suffering rotating power brownouts from two to four hours a day.
“Everybody is consuming more than what they contracted,” Mr. Aquino told reporters who were invited to observe some parts of the meeting but were asked to leave when the discussions went into the cost of electricity in Mindanao.
During the meeting, which included Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras and Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) chair Lualhati Antonino, it was pointed out that actual power capacity in Mindanao was only 1,180 while peak capacity now stands at 1,300 megawatts.
“This represents everybody who uses power in Mindanao. There is a difference. No one is consuming less than they contracted,” Mr. Aquino said, while pointing out on a PowerPoint screen the difference between the electricity being generated and the amount being consumed.
Early warnings
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the private company that operates and maintains the country’s electricity transmission network, had warned as early as last year of an impending power crisis in Mindanao, and urged the construction of more power sources, including fuel-driven plants.
Last week, the NGCP said there was an “acute shortage” of electricity in Mindanao, resulting in brownouts since the start of the year.
It said the Mindanao grid had a shortfall of 178 mW, an increase of 40 mW from the 138 mW shortfall on Feb. 22. It attributed the increase in power supply deficiency to the 38-mW drop in available capacity from 1,117 mW on Feb. 22 to 1,079 mW in mid-March.
Almendras earlier said the rotating daily brownouts in Mindanao were caused primarily by the shortage of supply and the decision of the electric cooperatives there not to purchase available, though more expensive, electricity from fuel-fired power facilities.
He said the energy department would soon issue an order mandating electric cooperatives to contract and purchase the necessary capacity to ensure adequate and steady electricity supply.
Other officials have pointed out that Mindanao’s heavy dependence on cheap hydropower sources makes its power supply vulnerable to drought and decreasing water levels in the watersheds.
According to Almendras, some electric cooperatives were overdrawing power from the 700-mW Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex, preferring this to contracting more capacities from the available diesel-fueled plants.
At Friday’s meeting, the President said two power barges were already in Mindanao to provide electricity. He said five more barges are on the way to Mindanao to address the shortage.
“The users have to order (from the barges) for power to be generated,” Almendras said.
Of the first two barges, only one is generating power for the island’s consumers because of the higher cost of generating electricity from such diesel-fueled barges.
“One is already contributing to the grid, the other one isn’t,” Mr. Aquino said.
When the discussions turned to how to keep the cost of electricity in Mindanao at manageable levels despite the higher cost of power from the barges, members of the media were asked to leave the room.
Almendras later told reporters that the power shortage is expected to last only through 2013 as there are already enough projects underway to address the lack of electricity by 2014 through 2016.
He said the government is looking at one possible solution—coal-fired power plants that would generate 300 mW for Mindanao.
Coal is cheaper than diesel as a fuel source for the power generators, he said.
‘Fake’ power crisis
But in Digos, Davao del Sur province, the head of the Davao del Sur Electric Cooperative (Dasureco) said the reported power crisis in Mindanao was “unreal” and “fake,” blaming instead the power-curtailment scheme being implemented by the NGCP.
“I do not believe that there is really an energy shortage in Mindanao,” said Godofredo Guya, the Dasureco manager.
He said despite the abundance of power in Mindanao, the NGCP “wanted to punish” consumers by implementing rotational load curtailments using a fake crisis.
NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza said the power outages are not due to any transmission-related concerns and also not because the NGCP refused to fully utilize the capacities of hydropower plants.
She said the power facilities of the state-run National Power Corp. (Napocor) and those owned and operated by private power generation firms could not meet the demand of customers in Mindanao.
“For the Mindanao grid, there is clearly a deficiency, considering that the published reserves are ‘gross reserves’ that do not even include the required regulating contingency and dispatchable reserves. These are reserves that are utilized by the grid to regulate frequency and voltage, and to avoid a complete grid shutdown in the event of an emergency power plant shutdown,” Alabanza said in a statement.
“It is possible that the data for rated capacities versus actual available capacities could have been misread or misinterpreted by certain quarters. Our data doesn’t lie. We stand by the data (we have),” she said.
Alabanza said the NGCP was not withholding excess power to simulate a power shortage.
“It does not benefit us to withhold supply as the NGCP cannot have a direct or indirect stake or interest in the generation and distribution businesses,” she said.
Hidden agenda
Asked why the NGCP was insisting on the load curtailment scheme, Guya said: “I think there is a hidden agenda in this problem.”
Bansalan, Davao del Sur Mayor Edwin Reyes said he suspected that the power-curtailment scheme was aimed at benefiting private power generation companies.
He said with that the staged power crisis, generation companies would make more money from their fuel-fired plants because electric cooperatives, such as Dasureco, would be forced to buy electricity from them to reduce the sufferings of their consumers.
“It would mean more expenses on the part of the consumers and more money for independent power producers,” he said. Orlando Dinoy with a report from Ryan Rosauro, Inquirer Mindanao
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