Brownouts to hit Luzon

Power supply in Mindanao, Visayas critical

A lack of power supply hovers above the whole of the country’s main island of Luzon because of power-plant outages blamed on maintenance shutdown, technical problems and low water levels from the El Niño phenomenon.

Jose de Jesus, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) president, told a media briefing that the company’s estimated reserves stood at only 43 megawatts as of 2 p.m., Thursday, which means that rotating brownouts could hit different parts of Luzon.

Carlito Claudio, National Grid Corp. of the Philippines vice president for systems operations, said that Luzon is indeed experiencing slim reserves but still had 100 megawatts of back-up power supply.

The power supply, however, would face a deficiency of 500 megawatts starting February 16 until March 11 because of a potential fuel run-off at the 650-megawatt Malaya diesel-fired power plant next week.

The Malaya power plant is run by Korea Electric and Power Co. (Kepco).

“Malaya was intended to be used for the shutdown of the Malampaya-fueled power plants starting February 10, but it was compelled to run in January due to the Sual and Limay shutdowns. Malaya said that it would run out of inventory already,” Claudio said.

Rotating brownouts hit Meralco’s franchise area as a result of the shutdown of the 620-megawatt Limay diesel plant and the 1,200- megawatt Sual coal plant. Both facilities are under control of San Miguel Corp.

National Grid expects Luzon’s power supply to stabilize after the maintenance shutdown of the combined 2,700-megawatt natural gas-fired power plants—Santa Rita and San Lorenzo (First Gen Corp.), and Ilijan (Kepco)—is completed by March 10.

Visayas, Mindanao in the red
Besides Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao grid’s power situations are also facing dire straits because of insufficient power generation and the effects of El Niño on hydroelectric facilities.

The Visayas region has been experiencing negative reserves (-117 megawatts) largely because of the lack of power generation and transmission constraints.

Mindanao ‘s power supply, half of which is reliant on hydroelectric plants, also slumped (-156 megawatts) after the dry weather affected water reserves in the region.

To help address the two regions’ critical power supplies, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes will meet with key power stakeholders in the coming days.

But while the Department of Energy affirmed that “both island groups have been experiencing rotating brownouts,” it did not say how the Energy chief would remedy or address the situation.

Meralco demand goes up
Demand for electricity from Meralco, the country’s largest power distribution network, has started to pick up in the face of dwindling power supply. Demand for the company’s services was stunted by the global economic crisis a year ago.

De Jesus said that electricity consumption in Meralco’s franchise area increased significantly in January.

“Our reading, [although] not final, is that [comparing] January [2009] to January [2010], it really went up. We don’t have the numbers yet, but indications are it’s a sizable jump. We probable have recovered back to 2008,” he added.

Meralco, however, is still weighing how the country’s tight power situation and the El Niño weather phenomenon might affect its projected consumption this year.

In 2009, the financial crisis put a damper on electricity demand in the Meralco franchise area, which covers Metro Manila and its outlying provinces, as industries cut back on their operations.

About 80 percent of Meralco’s industrial customers belong to the semiconductor manufacturing business, whose main market are large economies abroad.

After high inflation rates slowed down sales to 2.2 percent (26,799 gigawatt-hours) in 2008 from 4.6 percent in 2007 (26,219 gigawatt-hours), Meralco officials projected flat sales for 2009.

A steadily improving industrial consumption in that year, however, left room for optimism that a higher growth could still be achieved.

De Jesus said that based on the recovering industrial sales, the country may have started to weather the effects of the economic crisis.

“In terms of the economy, perhaps, since electricity consumption is a good indicator. It looks like there really is a recovery. Based on what we’re seeing, [industrial] leads commercial and residential in terms of growth, year-on-year,” he added.

Because of this apparent recovery, Ivanna de la Peña, Meralco first vice president and utility economics head, said that the company has started to recast its flat growth projection last year and its 3.0-percent target for 2010.

“We are finishing 2009 but it’s better than what we expected [because] some growth was registered. We will come up with the final figure with the release of the FS [financial statement],” she added. –EUAN PAULO C. AÑONUEVO Reporter, Manila Times