By
Manuel Cayon - February 22, 2017
This time, it shifted
to the western side, specifically the Cebu-Dipolog areas, as probable
connection points, NGCP Spokesman Cynthia Alabanza said.
The Leyte-Surigao
hydrology survey had turned out to be improbable due to “adverse factors”,
including unexploded World War II ordnance and sunken warships.
The western connection
was decided last year after scouting for probable connection points, as the
government pursued the interconnection project, initially to relay excess
electric supply from Luzon and the Visayas to power-starved Mindanao grid back
then, she said.
But Mindanao appeared
to be heading for an expected big excess of as much as 1,000 megawatts (MW)
beginning next year, the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) said.
A feasibility study has
been commissioned for this new connection prospect, and included a new
hydrology profile study on the seabed terrain where the submarine cable would
be laid.
The shortest timetable
to finish the P52-billion interconnection project would be in December 2022,
Alabanza said, adding the interconnection distance would cover about 100
kilometers of undersea cable.
She could not ascertain
yet, however, on whether the NGCP would tap Filipino contractors to undertake
the project, saying it would depend on the result of the bidding and the
capability of the contractors.
Alabanza was here on
Wednesday for a public consultation on the implementation of the Wholesale
Electricity Spot Market for Mindanao, the third leg of the road show before the
target implementation by June this year.
The interconnection project
has been started two decades ago, as Mindanao continued to reel on succeeding
energy crisis over its high dependence on hydroelectric power and as El Niño
began to wreak havoc with its longer cycles and shorter respite from each
cycle.
Excess supply
“IT would be a
sentimental journey back then, when we were talking about a deep shortage of
power supply in Mindanao,” Alabanza said, stressing that the intention of the
interconnection project with Leyte as the connection point “was to bring excess
power from Luzon and the Visayas to Mindanao.”
“But now, we may be
expecting mutual and two-way transmission of supply, including from Mindanao to
other areas like, including Luzon, probably,” she said.
In the same
consultation and news briefing, Romeo Montenegro, public affairs chief of the
MinDA, said Mindanao would expect supply to be in excess by about 1,000 MW,
when the Ayala-owned coal plant in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, will go online
with the Mindanao grid.
The said coal plant
alone, he said, has a capacity of 540 MW, with 160 MW expected to be available
by the end of this year, he said.
Several areas, like
General Santos City and Digos City, were already in excess since two years ago,
after new investors established their own bunker fuel-run generating plants,
and a solar plant in Digos City.
These cities were among
the areas that experienced in as much as eight hours of long blackouts during
the power crisis periods in the last two decades. The last severe power
shortage in 2015 affected even Davao City, which used to have backup sources.
Montenegro said the
Department of Energy has also received applications for 260 projects to develop
renewable-energy projects that would generate 3,000 MW, but these projects may
still take a long time to start over technical and documentary requirements.
He said, though, that
the “competitive” or higher electricity rates here have also attracted
investors to Mindanao, “due to the reduction of the cheap hydroelectric power
in the profile of the energy mix in the Mindanao grid”.
From 90-percent
dependency of the Mindanao grid to the hydroelectric-power plants in the Agus
River in the Lanao provinces and Pulangui River in Bukidnon, the aging plants
have also forced the decline in production capacity that brought it down to
only 30-percent composition of the grid.
With new plants, mostly
ran on coal and bunker fuel, the grid now has an installed capacity of 3,000
MW, with dependable capacity at 2,500 MW. The demand was running at 1,600 MW.
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