A FEW days ago, important figures in the electricity sector were all in one place at the Napocor offices to meet on the power situation in Mindanao.
You see, long and recurring power outages were hitting business across the island, and everybody was already complaining like hell.
It so happens that the Aquino (Part II) administration already adopted the official line that there was enough power supply there. And so what should explain the power failures?
Leading the meeting was Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras, who used to be an executive of the Ayala group (real estate, water distribution, telecommunications and banking) and the Aboitiz group (banking, shipping and also power generation).
Almendras seemed to go with the spin in media of late that the problem was National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
Thus in the meeting, Almendras—together with other top officials of his department, such as those from Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Corporation (Psalm), National Transmission Corp. (Transco) and the National Electrification Administration (NEA)— pushed for the official line.
He wanted the meeting to agree that Mindanao has enough power supply, implying that private firm NGCP should take the blame for the outages.
NGCP of course refused to tow the official line. Government data, as provided by state-managed Napocor, point to an actual supply shortage.
Theoretically, all the power generating plants in Mindanao can cover the demand, since their rated capacities add up to about 1,800 megawatts.
The problem was that those power plants could not supply their full capacity all the time.
On Oct. 1, for instance, the Napocor report showed that Mindanao suffered a shortage of 74 megawatts, simply because Napocor put into the Mindanao grid much less power supply than the rated capacities of its plants.
And so NGCP was saying Napocor should make the full capacities of its plants available in the grid.
But why are Napocor’s power plants in Mindanao, mostly hydro and geothermal plants, meaning, “not” expensive power, not running at full capacity?
Other power plants in the island belong to private groups, such as the power barges of the Aboitiz group.
Being expensive to run, these plants merely act as supporting cast to the so-called “baseload” coming from Napocor’s plants.
In effect, because Napocor refused to run its plants at full capacity, Mindanao would need those support power plants, no matter how costly the electricity.
Are the people of Mindanao willing to pay for the higher electricity rates?
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