By MST Business Posted on May 22, 2013 at 12:01am
The financial losses now being suffered by Mindanao as a result of crippling power outages may be replicated in the premier investment centers of Luzon, unless the government takes decisive steps to meet the rising demand for electricity in these areas.
Subic Bay Freeport Zone locator and Eastern Petroleum chairman Fernando Martinez expects electricity demand at the economic zone and elsewhere to increase at a much higher pace if the recent investment upgrade translated into an influx of foreign direct investments into the country leading to greater business activity.
Eastern Petroleum owns a mega gas station at the free port with its retail network spanning numerous stations across the country, including Mindanao.
“There is a need to address the ever-growing need especially here in Metro Manila and Luzon where the demand growth outpaces that of the whole country. We cannot risk having businesses and industries in the area suffer the same fate as those in Mindanao affected when more than 50 percent of the country’s GDP comes from them,” Martinez said.
Martinez said the Luzon blackout on May 8 underlined the critical supply level in the metropolis and the country’s main island and the urgency for government to put a premium on expanding its energy infrastructure to ensure long-term power stability.
He said stable and reliable power would spur more industries and spending and increase national consumption including that of fuel.
“At the same time, we want to keep Subic as an investment and tourism hub that will spur more earnings not only for our business but also for other locators and investors,” he said.
Martinez added “power generation projects already on stream or still on the drawing boards should be put on the fast lane” to augment the current supply of energy in the Luzon grid, especially after the Energy Department projected that the island group would need 600 MW of new capacity three years from now.
He said the eco-friendly coal-fired power plant of the Redondo Peninsula Energy (RP Energy) consortium at the Subic Bay Freeport could readily address the concern.
“The government must work in partnership with the private sector to increase capacity in the Luzon grid because this rising demand could even be much higher now that investors are setting their sights on the Philippines. We have been doing this in the petroleum sector where gasoline stations are strategically located to ensure stable supply nationwide,” he said.
Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce president Danny Piano a year ago aired the same concern. Piano said Luzon could return to the dark days of the 1990s, when 12-hour power outages put people out of work for hours and paralyzed manufacturing and service firms, unless new power generation facilities become operational before 2016. source
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