Aquino admits no reliable back up for looming power crisis next year

Sunstar Network
Tuesday, October 28, 2014

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III admitted Tuesday that there could be no reliable solution in case power shortage hit Luzon grid next year.

Aquino told executives from the semiconductor and electronic industry that leasing generators to produce additional capacity during the summer months of 2015 was not an option anymore due to inaction yet of Congress to grant him the emergency powers.

He noted that there is no more time to install these generator sets because six months are needed to do this.

"So, Congress and some members of the private sector are very, very inclined to just utilize the so-called Interruptible Load Program. My caution was these backup generators are precisely that backup generators, not base load plants. And there is no assurance... I’m just trying to give you the picture as I see it so as not to raise false hopes," he said.

Aquino said the reason he wanted the base load plants than ILP was precisely because they have demonstrated capability to produce the attendant power.

"Unfortunately, the cost is also high; between 6 to 12 billion pesos of something that we hope we will not utilize. But it is better to have and not need than to need and not have," he said.

Congress has yet to act on the President's request for emergency powers to address the possible power shortage.

Aquino expressed hope that power supply problem next year would just be mild.

"So hopefully, all of these steps that are being undertaken and hopefully we will have a mild or non-existent El Niño situation next year, will not produce the emergency situation and that we will all have the necessary power," he said. (SDR/Sunnex) source