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With rotating brownouts still bothering Cebu, a “power swap” was proposed yesterday for short-term relief.
Global Business Power Corp. (GBPC) president Jesus Alcordo yesterday offered this setup to ease the power shortage in Cebu.
During a meeting called by Gov. Gwen Garcia, Alcordo proposed to swap an excess 12 megawatts to 15 MW from Global’s power plant in Iloilo province with the same volume from the Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) grid in the Visayas and channel it to Cebu.
This way the National Power Corp. (Napocor) would get 15 MW from the Visayas grid and distribute it to Cebu.
The shortage of 15MW would be supplied by Global in Cebu.
Businessmen welcomed the proposal of Alcordo as any additional power would help ease the power shortage in Cebu.
Ethel Natera, Visayan Electric Co. spokesperson, said an additional 15 MW wouldn’t fully solve the power crisis altogether but would be a big help as it would reduce the number of areas that would suffer power interruptions.
Since last month, Veco has been rotating hour-long rotation usually at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. due to a shortage of power supply.
Yesterday, most parts of Mandaue City had brownouts at 1:23 p.m. due to a shortage of 70 MW in the CNP Grid because four power plants were not operating yesterday.
Of the 70 MW, Veco's share was 33.2 MW.
Cebu’s power supply suffers thin to nonexistent reserves, making it vulnerable to shortages whenever a plant is down for maintenance or a technical malfunction affects the system.
New coal-fired plants in Naga City and Toledo will be operational in 2010, easing the situation.
Governor Garcia said that compared to Panay, Bohol and other provinces in the Visayas Grid, Cebu has the biggest increase in power demand with an average of 10.1 MW over last year.
She said this is because Cebu has become the center for investments from many companies who have opened offices here.
Carlos Co, Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry committee chairman on power, said the business sector is looking forward to stable supply.
“Some of our members have already done the automatic shedding of power or deloading and we are also encouraging more to participate and give their commitments as well. This is just a temporary problem,” he said.
“By February of 2010, once the Toledo power plant unit is energized we expect this problem to be more manageable.”
He was referring to new coal-fired plants in Toledo City being built by the Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC).
CEDC, whose president is Alcordo, is a consortium of four companies – Global Business Power Corp., Formosa Heavy Industries Corp., Aboitiz Power Corp. and Vivant Power Corp.
The additional supply from Toledo City, however, would only be a temporary relief as power reserves in the Visayas remain slim.
Co said the CCCI was always willing to help since the power crisis has affected their members, mostly small and medium enterprises that don’ have their own generator sets.
He said the proposal of Global to swap its excess power was a “good suggestion” but said the cost factor also has to be discussed.
It’s an “ideal partial solution”, said Eric Ng Mendoza, president of Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“Since Global has a contract to supply Panay and Panay has an excess while Cebu has a shortage, the 15 MW will be a partial solution to the shortage,” he added.
Mendoza, however, said this arrangement can only happen once the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) agrees with the swap.
Governor Garcia said she would need the commitment of Napocor, Global, and WESM to make the proposal work.
She set another meeting next week especially that WESM was not represented in yesterday’s meeting.
“As much as possible we want to get the ball rolling on this as soon as possible,” she said.
Garcia called a meeting yesterday with players in the power industry to ask what could be done about the power supply shortage.
Among those who attended were representatives from Napocor, the National Grip Corp. of the Philippines, Department of Energy, Energy Regulatory Commission and Veco.
There’s a need to rehabilitate aging power plants of Napocor that were sold to private firms because these were at least 26 years old, said Paul Aquino of Green Core, which bought Napocor's units in Tongonan, Leyte and in Palimpinon, Negros Oriental.
Aquino said three units in Tongonan were underperforming.
“We have one unit producing 60 MW instead of its capacity of 75 MW and the two other units in Tongonan need to be rehabilitated for three years each with a capacity of 37.5 MW,” he said.
Palimpinon 1 plant produces 94 MW although its capacity is 112.5 MW. Palimpinon 2 produces 78 MW despite its capacity of 80 MW, said Aquino.
Aside from old power plants, some private generation companies also raised the issue of the possibility of not being able to generate energy once the subsidy from Napocor ends.
“There are some plants with very high maintenance like the gas turbines. Some need diesel as fuel, which according to them, are very expensive. So this is very difficult. That’s why we really need to talk to WESM and all other stakeholders to come up with a mechanism to solve the problem,” Governor Garcia said.
