DOE braces for critical power situation this year

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Energy (DOE) is readying plans to meet the country’s energy requirements amid the critical situation this year, most especially during the summer months.

Data from the DOE shows that Luzon will be needing 300 megawatts (MW) during the said months to meet the 23.4% needed reserve margin.

This means that Luzon will experience brownouts if there will be unscheduled outages from power plants.

To address the situation, the department plans to bring the surplus power from the Visayas via the Leyte-Luzon high voltage direct current link.

Mindanao, on the other hand, will be feeling the shortage as early as March due to the preventive maintenance suspension of the Pulangui IV hydropower plant in Maramag, Bukidnon.

DOE is now coordinating with the National Power Corp. (Napocor) for alternative power sources.

Otherwise, the situation there will be better than 2010 due to the La Niña phenomenon. Mindanao relies heavily on hydro power.

Visayas, on the other hand, will be better off this year since new plants are projected to operate as early as March.

These are the: 240 MW Coal-Fired Power Plant (CFPP) of the Cebu Energy Development Corporation (CEDC);160 MW CFPP of the Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC); and the 200 MW CFPP of the Kepco-Salcon Power Corporation (KSPC).

Also contributing to the improvement of power in the region is the operation of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) Visayas, which started in December 2010. The power spot market’s operator, Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC), earlier reported an improvement in the Visayas grid.

The DOE said a revisit of the Power Development Plan is also needed for the integration and reconciliation of the whole power system with the generation companies’ capacities.

Aside from encouraging private investors to explore more opportunities locally to solve the power supply gap, schedules of planned power projects will also be closely monitored. –abs-cbnNEWS.com