Mindanao brownouts to continue through Holy Week as stop-gap measures proposed

Business World Online

Posted on March 27, 2013 07:37:11 PM

KORONADAL/DAVAO -- Residents of General Santos City, Sarangani and parts of South Cotabato will have to endure long brownouts until the end of the Holy Week. According to a statement given by the South Cotabato Electric Cooperative 2 (Socoteco-2) to its consumers, seven-hour rotating brownouts will continue two times a day.
This as the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) has proposed stop-gap strategies to counter the impact of the mild El Niño on the island’s already languishing power situation. Romeo M. Montenegro, MinDA’s director for Investment Promotions, warned of a repeat of the 2010 scenario when most of Mindanao’s towns and provinces served by electric cooperatives without embedded generators experienced four- to 10-hour brownouts. 
That was when the reduced water levels in the Pulangi and Agus dams resulted in a loss of around 500 megawatts (MW) of power from the grid. 
The island’s power deficiency has been going up in recent months -- on Wednesday, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines said Mindanao’s power deficiency was 163 MW. 
ANGRY CUSTOMERSSocoteco-2 told its customers that the brownout schedule would remain the same until Easter Sunday, noting that the National Power Corp. has made no official forecast if the outages would continue next week. The power outages, which previously ranged from two to four hours daily, have outraged residents. Last Monday, rallying militants threw stones at the Socoteco-2 office and smeared mud on its office gates.
Bayan-Soccsksargen Spokesperson Ryan L. Lariba said the rally showed the peoples’ dismay at the government and the cooperative’s inability to address the power problems in the region. 
In its statement, Socoteco-2 suggested a de-loading scheme for big corporations and residential consumers to address the worsening power condition. The electric cooperative suggests big consumers use their power generators for at least three hours a day under the Department of Energy’s Interruptible Load Program. This could save up to 28 MW a day within Socoteco-2’s coverage, the cooperative said.
The power distributor also suggests that its more than 120,000 consumers turn off their refrigeration units for four hours to save up to 5.4 MW a day. It also proposed to put up 20-MW diesel-powered generators as embedded capacity. 
STOP-GAP MEASURES
During the Mindanao Power Summit in April 2012, local government leaders and the private sector proposed the quick rehabilitation of the Agus-Pulangi plants which could add up to 100 MW of additional capacity to the grid. They also asked President Benigno S. C. Aquino III for the government to delay the privatization of the Agus-Pulangi plants until the power situation improves.
MinDA’s Mr. Montenegro said that another untapped energy source is the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) where huge industries are requested to operate their generator sets during peak periods. Based on MinDA estimates, the program can generate 100 MW in Davao City alone.
For example, he said, Coca-Cola has an embedded generator with installed capacity of 12 MW, SM City has a generator with installed capacity of up to 7 MW. “General Santos (City) has 32 MW, Zamboanga has another 16 MW, we can reduce the requirements by having these industries operate their gensets,” he said.
Once the Iligan Power Plant -- which was taken over by the Alcantara Group from the local government earlier this month -- resumes operations in May, it will add another 102 MW to the grid. 
“So there’s 400 MW of power to bail us out, but it’s not an easy fix. There are so many hurdles that we have to overcome,” he said. -- Louie O. Pacardo and Joel B. Escovilla   source