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Power suppliers in Cebu said they can?t promise a Christmas season free of rotating brownouts being experienced in the island since last week because of ?aging? power plants and lack of backup reserves.
?This (the power shortage) is not a situation that will go away soon. We have to be more judicious in the use of electricity,? said Ricardo Lacson, Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) vice president for administration and consumer services group.
He urged consumers to conserve and use energy efficiently to ease a power supply shortage, which was described as a 200-megawatt (MW) deficit of reserves.
Veco will continue to prioritize distribution for households, he assured.
?Given the situation (power shortage), we always try to manage how we distribute available power,? he added.
Veco is implementing hour-long rotation brownouts which are normally felt at at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Jess Alcordo, president of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC), said ?Cebu is on red alert because we are really short of power?.
CEDC is constructing coal-fired plants in Toledo City which will be operational next year.
Alcordo, former president of the National Power Corp. and commissioner of the Energy Regulatory Commission, told a forum yesterday that Cebu has consumed all of its power reserve in December 2008 and that 2009 marked the start of reserve deficits.
Citing data from the National Transmission Commission, Alcordo said Cebu has been suffering from a power reserve deficit of over 200 megawatt (MW) since September this year.
Contributing to this shortage are ongoing plant maintenance work and the continuous operation of diesel-powered and ?aging? power plants.
Ongoing maintenance work on power plants that supply the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid (CNP) and the operation of 30-year old Cebu based power plants also affect the island's power sufficiency.
Alcordo said the 40 MW diesel-fired plants in Cebu are already 30 years old just like another coal powered plant that produced 66 MW.
?You can spend as much money as you can (on maintenance and repair works) but that is still an old plant,? said Alcordo.
Cebu province produces 57 percent of its power needs. The remaining 43 percent is provided by geothermal power from Leyte province.
Alcordo said Cebu needs about 615 MW of power daily and a 23-percent power reserve of about 144 MW.
But he said only 519 MW is being supplied by local producers and the Visayas grid, thus incurring a deficit of about 96 MW.
The deficit and the need for the 144 MW of power reserve increase the overall power deficit of Cebu province to 240 MW.
Additional power of 246 MW would be made available in 2010 yet with the operation of the coal-fired power plant in Toledo City being constructed by CEDC.
The CEDC is a consortium of four companies ? Global Business Power Corp., Formosa Heavy Industries Corp., Aboitiz Power Corp. and Vivant Power Corp.
The new Toledo power plant is expected to normalize the power situation , but the relief may just be temporary.
Alcordo said he expected another power shortage in 2012 unless an alternative enegery source is identified.
During his presentation at the 888 forum at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino, Alcordo said power demand always increases with economic development.
He explained that for every one percent increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), energy demand goes up by 1.4 percent growth.
Raul Lucero, Veco vice president for engineering, said the power shortage in the CNP grid started 2 years ago.
There is little Veco could do to since it just distriutes power to consumers, he said.
Lucero said a shortage is more noticeable now with maintenance repair work of some power plants scheduled in September and October.
Cebu can?t get help from other areas in the country since there is also a power shortage in Luzon
?They said that power in Luzon has normalized, but we don't know when the CNP grid power supply would stabilize,? said Lucero.
Alcordo said there is no immediate solution to Cebu?s power shortage.
While it is very costly to operate diesel-powered power barges, four of these stationed in Cebu during the 2007 hosting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit are now stationed in Iloilo, said Alcordo.
Veco has no choice but to implement rotation brownouts during a power shortage, said Lucero ?because we try to spread available power to our customer.?
Alcordo said Cebu has to self-generate power to solve the crisis.
?We need a base land capacity here on our island. We should not only rely on imported power for reliability,? he said.
Alcordo said the interruptible load agreement by Veco with big establishments that use their own generator sets was only a ?band aid? solution.
Nevertheless, it helps ease the effects of a power shortage, said Lacson.
Under the agreement, participating firms like San Miguel Corp. and Gaisano Metro Mandaue, Ayala and Colon disconnect their power from Veco and use their generators.
Veco gives financial compensation to help shoulder the cost of operating their generator sets.
Lucero said nine large -power consumers were able to shed at least 8 MW from the grid. Some large energy consumers like hotel operators have approached Veco and volunteered to shed load from the grid when power supply is low.
Veco is urging households to shift to the use of compact fluorescent light (CFL) which consumes less energy than ordinary light bulbs. Veco is coordinating with the Department of Energy in the campaign for CFL use.
Brownouts hurt small firms
With small and medium enterprises making up 95 percent of firms in Cebu, the brownouts hurt.
It?s affected productivity especially since they happen without prior notice, said Jose T. Ng, Philippine Chamber of Commerce vice president for the Visayas.
?I'm sure brownouts will affect their operations which will result in a lower daily livelihood income and prevent them from flourishing and growing,? he added.
Ng said most businesses in Cebu don't own power generator sets which are expensive.
During a power outage, many businesses especially those in manufacturing, have to stop operations.
Carlos Co, Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industries chairman of the power committee, agreed. .
Co, who owns Cebu Oversea Hardware Corporation, said the sporadic power outages affect businesses that don't own generator sets.
?If they have their own generator set, the effects would be lesser,? he said.
?We installed the necessary generator sets in our company so we are incurring additional cost to generate our own power at about P3 more per kilowatt hour,? he said.
Some firms had to buy additional equipment such as uninterrupted power supply (UPS) units to protect their computers and servers.
Ng said that if possible, businessmen should be told in advance when a brownout will strike so they can prepare and even schedule operations around it to minimize production losses.
?That way, we can still promote productivity for our SMEs and help them grow despite the problem,? he added.
Ng also urged power companies to come up with alternative solution especially that Cebu's economy is growing and highly dependent on power.
Bobby Joseph, chairman emeritus of the National Independent Travel Agencies (NAITAS), said that players in the tourism industry like hotels and resorts should also be given priority in energy distribution.
?Hopefully there will be no brownout at the airport because that is going to be a big slap on the face of tourism,? he said.
