Water rationing, blackouts to hit Manila this summer

LUZON could face three-hour blackouts this year if the power demand reaches a peak of 7,900 megawatts and power plants break down, while the summer is likely to bring water shortages later in the year, an official told the Manila Standard.

Metro Manila will be particularly hard hit by the outages, so the Energy Department has already asked the power-generating companies to do preventive maintenance work early to avoid any interruptions, especially during summer.

“If peak demand [reaches 7,900 megawatts], calculations show we are going to be 300 megawatts short,” Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said. That would mean rotating outages of three hours a day, he said.

Peak demand in Luzon reached 6,928 megawatts in May 2009, which was 3.8 percent higher than the 6,674 megawatts recorded in 2008.

With the government projecting a 7-percent to 8-percent growth in the economy, Luzon will need about 500 megawatts of extra power to keep up with demand.

The only way to avoid the blackouts was to keep all the plants running and to bring new capacity on stream Almendras said.

A 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant being built by GNPower Co. in Bataan would be the first facility to come on stream in years, Almendras said.

Other coal-fired power projects on the drawing board will be built by San Miguel Corp., Manila Electric Co., and Aboitiz Power Corp.

But Almendras said it took at least three years to build a power plant, and no new project was planned in 2009 to ensure more power to drive the economy.

“Generation projects [for Luzon] should have come as early 2009 and yet nothing happened,” Almendras said.

“We need to plan three years, or four years, or ideally even five years ahead.”

To prevent power outages in Metro Manila, the government could move between 150 and 200 megawatts of extra supply to Luzon from the Visayas, Almendras said.

The government launched the commercial operations of the wholesale electricity spot market in the Visayas on Dec. 26. The spot market, which acts as a trading floor for electricity, will help channel excess power in the Visayas to Luzon.

Almendras said Mindanao might also continue to experience power outages during this summer. Mindanao was the worst hit region in 2010 due to the impact of El Niño on its hydro-electric plants.

“As of now, Mindanao’s dam levels are very good… Mindanao will experience outages, but not as bad as [last year’s] because of all the measures we have undertaken,” he said.

The Energy Department solved the Mindanao shortage by tapping the combined 200-megawatt generation capacity of two power barges owned by the Aboitiz Group.

In October, Almendras also asked power companies to speed up their expansion and rehabilitation projects to secure the country’s power requirements and to prevent a looming power shortage in the next two years.

He said there had been talks with the Aboitiz, Consunji, San Miguel Corp., the Lopez Group and new players to help meet the country’s power requirements.

Plans also call for rehabilitating the remaining power plants owned by the state-run National Power Corp. The power problem is expected to be aggravated by a water shortage that is seen to get worse this year.

Rodolfo German, manager of the Angat Dam hydroelectric power plant, said the dam’s water level continued to dip due to a lack rain.

“Metro Manila is now experiencing a supply problem because of the low water elevation at Angat,” German told the Manila Standard.

Residents must brace for another water crisis from January until the end of summer.

“We are not expecting typhoons to develop over the following months. That is why we anticipate another record-low level at Angat Dam,” German said.

The rain brought about by La Niña and the northeast monsoon was not enough to replenish the the dam’s water, German said.

“We need typhoons,” he said.

He said some 41 cubic meters per second of raw water from Angat Dam had been allocated to the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System and its two water concessionaires, Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Co. Inc., until Dec. 31.

But the National Water Resources Board is cutting the allocation down to 37 cubic meters per second starting Jan. 1. –Alena Mae S. Flores and Rio N. Araja, Manila Standard Today