By: Tarra Quismundo 01:49 AM August 17th, 2016
Energy Secretary
Alfonso Cusi on Tuesday assured the Senate that there would be no power crisis
in Luzon even as it looked into whether power producers had colluded to prompt
a price spike during the rolling blackouts that hit Luzon in recent weeks.
At the start of the
Senate inquiry on the Luzon power situation, Cusi made the assurance upon the
questioning by Sen. Leila de Lima, who asked if the country was facing “a
looming power crisis.”
“I don’t think so,”
Cusi said, citing “the numbers that we have, that [we have] more than the
supply.”
“And just to make sure
that a power crisis will not happen, we have to make sure that the plants are
running and that we have reserves,” said Cusi.
He said Luzon, the
country’s largest power consumer, was currently on normal alert after glitches
and maintenance shutdowns of power plants caused outages across the island from
July 26 to Aug. 5.
“We have sufficient
supply to cover all reserves,” said Cusi, as he urged consumers to conserve
energy.
“Hopefully, when other
generating plants in the horizon come into the picture, we will have sufficient
supply and brownouts will not happen again,” he said.
Power demand
Luzon needs 13,109
megawatts of dependable power supply at any given time, Cusi said. Peak demand
is at 9,700 MW, leaving a buffer of about 4,000 MW for emergencies.
Luzon, where the
central government, major business districts and industrial parks are located,
accounted for three-fourths (74.4 percent) of the country’s total power
consumption in 2014, with usage pegged at 57,489 gigawatt hour, according to
data earlier released by Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto.
Supply fluctuations
were recorded over the past two weeks as 20 Luzon power plants had to shut down
for maintenance or were forced to stop operations or derate due to technical
problems.
Sen. Sherwin
Gatchalian, chair of the Senate committee on energy, and Recto had called for
an inquiry into the rolling blackouts to check the supply situation in the
Luzon grid and find out if there was collusion within the industry to force a
price hike.
Cusi said the
Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) were
working together to look into that possibility.
“We’re not saying there
is [collusion], we just want to make sure that it is really not happening,”
Cusi said.
He had told the
committee earlier: “We’re not discounting it.”
On Recto’s questioning,
officials said the price spike was minimal with the Manila Electric Company
estimating it at 2 centavos for an hourlong blackout.
“That spike might not
be too substantial for consumers. But the point is, when will we know that?”
Gatchalian said.
A DOE study showed that
the simultaneous power plant stoppages in recent weeks occurred as several
power plants shut down for maintenance which were postponed earlier to ensure a
stable power supply during the May elections.
This coincided with
unexpected glitches in other plants, Cusi explained.
ERC chair Jose Vicente
Salazar said the forced shutdowns were due to a variety of technical problems
that needed urgent repairs, such as boiler leaks and defective parts, and low
water levels in the case of hydroelectric power plants.
Cusi said the DOE had
tapped a team from the Integrated Electrical Engineers of the Philippines to
conduct a technical audit of the country’s power generation, transmission and
distribution infrastructure for free. TVJ
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