Interruptible Load Program may help ease power woes in 2015

Manila Bulletin
by Malou M. Mozo
October 24, 2014

Cebu City, Cebu — The success story of the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) pioneered by power distribution firm Visayan Electric Company (Veco) in Cebu has garnered the praise of a Cebuano lawmaker who urged the government to replicate the program to address a looming power shortfall in the summer of 2015.

“Veco offered an impressive solution that Luzon needs to replicate. Meralco can even do more,” said Senator Sergio Osmeña III in a Senate committee on energy hearing last October 9, where he opposed any state intervention in the power sector.

In the same hearing, Veco chief operating officer Sebastian Lacson presented how the ILP program became a significant factor on why Cebu did not seek for emergency powers when it suffered a power shortfall after typhoon Yolanda, when geothermal plants in Leyte province shutdown.

Lacson told the Senate committee that Veco was able to draw up to four million kilowatt-hours from ILP in the two months after Yolanda hit. Veco registered a high of 45 megawatts capacity from ILP or 11 percent of that time’s total demand of 414 megawatts.

“Part of the success of the program was that we did not make it mandatory for out customers. It was a scheme where participants had to lose a bit for the benefit of the public. It’s not a money-making venture,” Lacson said in an interview yesterday.

Veco’s ILP is a scheme approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) where energy users with large loads — such as business establishments like hotels and malls to factories — are asked to run their standby generator sets to ease the demand for power from the grid during peak hours.

“When we need the commitments once again – with the help of local government, the chamber, and the participants – we just call on them. They are happy with the compensation that the ERC granted via two different resolutions,” said Veco’s Lacson.

He said Veco has 64-MW worth of ILP commitments from 25 business establishments in Cebu with an average of 2-3 MW of generator sets each. source