If load shedding returns I will resign – Zambales

by Geraldford Ticke - Nov 25, 2015
http://www.palawantimes.com/if-load-sheddiesign-zambales/

PALAWAN Electric Cooperative General Manager Ric Zambales said that he will leave his post if the problem of electricity in the province is not resolved by summer next year. In an exclusive interview with The Palawan Times last November 13, Zambales admitted that he will have to take the blame if the recurring brownouts continue by next year. “If the load-shedding is back summer, I will resign,” Zambales said. “I work at the pleasure of the board of directors, so I told them that if I cannot solve this problem, I have to resign,” he explained.

He said however that he is confident that the current power situation will normalize soon.

Right now, Delta P, one of the Independent Power Producers supplying electricity to Paleco has two reserve generator sets he said. “What they told me is that they are preparing it for December (this year) and summer time (next year,)” he explained. “So I said that maybe we will have to bear with a few hours of intermittent power interruptions today. I just told them to make sure that by summer time, we will have no blackouts and they assured me,” he added.

Zambales also explained that the current power capacity of the IPPs in the province is pegged at 42 megawatts “although the contracted capacity is 52.” But he said that the 42 megawatts is more than enough for the present demand. “Right now, our peak load is only 35 megawatts which we experience every afternoon,” he said.

He also said that come December, they expect to reach a maximum demand of 37. “Based on our previous records, we reached 37 megawatts peak load in December last year so we expect almost the same this year,” he said.

“At the height of summer time, we reached a peak of 39 megawatts but that was only for one hour. The stable peak load last year was 38 megawatts,” he explained.
He also explained that it was during that time that the high-speed generator sets of DMCI bogged down.

“They have to maximize the capacity so because it was a high-speed, the engines suffered,” he said. “Seven of their units were totally destroyed that resulted to our load shedding,” he added.