The prince of darkness

Manila Standard Today

By Alvin Capino | Mar. 03, 2014 at 12:01am

Although many people I know would like to confer the title of “Prince of Darkness” to Pres. Benigno Aquino, I believe that the honor should go to Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla. The secretary is more deserving of the title.

President Aquino does not deserve it because of his open and public admission that he does not know what is happening in the energy sector when he went to Davao Oriental last week as part of the Edsa celebration. He was told that more than a year after the devastation of Typhoon Pablo, 57 percent of the barangays in the province still have no electricity.

He said he was unaware of this problem until the governor of Davao Oriental told him that they were dealing with the problem of a one-year long blackout.

So Petilla, the alter ego of the President as far as the energy sector is concerned, is most deserving to be remembered as the “Prince of Darkness” of the Noynoy Aquino administration.

This summer, Petilla will have the opportunity to consolidate his hold on the title when Luzon goes through what appears to be inevitable rotating blackouts at the peak of summer.

Petilla, of course, has assured us that Luzon would be blackout-free. But it seems that his assurance comes from bravado more than anything else.

Summer is the time when demand for electricity is highest. It is also the time when hydroelectric power is drastically reduced as water levels in dams go down.

Petilla says the DOE calculations show that there will be power reserves but what he is downplaying is that the power reserves this summer are precariously thin as total demand for Luzon is expected to hit 10,300 MW as against available supply of 10,500 MW.

This means that we have measly reserve of 200 MW only and an unscheduled shutdown or tripping of even just one IPP would likely force DOE to order a power rationing in Metro Manila. This could result in power interruptions lasting two or three hours a day.

In fairness to Petilla, he did not say that there would be no blackouts in Luzon. The problem is that he is trying to play down the problem.

Petilla did admit that the Luzon grid would be on “yellow alert” this summer which means there will be rotating power brownout once a major power plant bogs down.

As a sort of reassurance, Petilla said the DOE has decided to run in April the government-owned Malaya Thermal Plant—yes the same idle facility that the government decided not to run despite the maintenance work on the Malampaya gas facility and the simultaneous shutdown of several IPPS.

The decision of the government power sector not to run Malaya during the Malampaya shutdown resulted in a situation where prices of electricity went sky high even as there was adequate supply after all.

It turns out that DOE has no option but to run Malaya this summer. Malaya has a rated capacity of 650 MW. With just a 200-MW reserve, blackouts are a certainty if Malaya remains idle.

Petilla should not worry about losing the title “Prince of Darkness”. The people of Mindanao would not allow him to lose it.

Mindanao suffered a massive island-wide power outage last week and Petilla could not even clearly identify the cause of the blackouts.

Curiously, President Aquino has decided to enter the Mindanao power shortage fray instead of allowing the more knowledgeable Petilla to do his job.

It would seem that the President is not about to give up the title of Prince of Darkness without a fight.

Instead of being reassuring, the President warned the people of Mindanao to expect more outages until 2015 when new power plants become operational.

Mr. Aquino said that since not all the power plants have been restored, the people should expect at least three-hour blackouts during the peak hours.

President Aquino’s statement that the power situation will normalize by next year in Mindanao and in Luzon is based on Petilla’s briefing that the various committed projects meant to augment supply were on track and scheduled for completion by 2015 or 2016.

However, the reality is far from what Petilla is saying. Based on recent media reports, it turns out that only two committed projects are actually ongoing. These are the respective 135 MW and 300 MW coal-fired plants of the Southern Luzon Thermal Energy Corp (a joint venture of Trans-Asia and Ayala Corp.) and the Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp. of the Consunji group.

It seems that the other projects mentioned by Petilla are only indicative ones that may not even take off at all.   source