No 8-hour brownouts in summer, House told
MANILA, Philippines–The eight-hour daily brownouts in summer that the Department of Energy (DOE) earlier warned the public about may turn out to be just one-hour brownouts every week in the Luzon grid.
The DOE made this late admission on Monday during the House committee on energy hearing meant to tackle President Aquino’s request to exercise his special powers under the Electricity Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).
“After all the hullabaloo, it turns out there is no shortage in supply, our supply is even greater than demand. The issue is net reserve, which is different from what the DOE wanted to project,” Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said at the hearing.
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said he was dismayed by the DOE’s false claims just to give the President special powers.
Upon Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla’s proposal, Aquino is asking Congress for emergency powers to deal with the looming power shortage in 2015.
Malacañang is preparing for a power crisis with an expected shortfall of 1,200 MW and up to eight-hour brownouts a day.
At the hearing, the DOE said that there would be no acute power shortage after all, just a modest 21- to 31-megawatt (MW) shortfall in buffer supply, which could mean at worst, one-hour power outages every week.
Renting gensets dropped
The DOE admission has prompted the energy committee chair, Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, to move the Oct. 29 deadline for giving the President emergency powers to Dec. 1 due to the lack of urgency.
The energy department has likewise dropped its proposal to lease additional capacity from power generators and instead batted for using generator sets (gensets) of private firms under the interruptible load program (ILP) to ensure additional power reserves of 700 MW.
Under the ILP, participating institutions and companies may be called upon to voluntarily use their own power generating units or gensets to ease demand from the grid during peak hours or during a supply deficit.
To date, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the largest distribution utility in Luzon, has signed up 25 companies with an aggregate deloading capacity of 155 MW, spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said in a phone interview.
Meralco president and CEO Oscar S. Reyes earlier said the country’s top distribution utility aimed to sign up a total of 450 MW of capacity that may be eased from the Luzon grid when ILP was triggered in summer.
Petilla no show
DOE officials, not including Petilla, were forced to admit that the main issue for the coming summer was the projected shortfall in power reserves of about 21 to 31 MW, below the ideal buffer.
Instead of a five-day, rotating brownouts of at most three hours in Luzon from March to June next year, Energy Undersecretary Raul Aguilos said the brownouts could occur only once a week.
DOE officials explained that they were projecting a higher power reserve because some power plants might suddenly go off-line in summer and leave a huge gap in the expected power supply.
Alarming public
“The DOE has been painting the wrong picture in the last few months… The DOE should be put to task for alarming the public for a long time about an energy crisis when the situation is about the lack of reserves, which is far different from a shortage,” said an irate Colmenares.
Umali said in an interview that the committee was still keen on supporting Aquino’s request for emergency powers.
But he said the joint resolution authorizing the emergency powers would focus on encouraging more participants in the ILP to ease energy demand, conservation measures and fast-tracking projects.
“Only the part about renting gensets from abroad is out. The focus will be on the ILP, plans for interconnections, facilitating power projects, and demand management,” Umali said.
Consumer group Power (People Opposed to unWarranted Electricity Rates) welcomed the decision of the House committee on energy to drop the proposal to rent or buy generating sets to address a projected power shortfall next year.
“It was clear from the presentation of the Department of Energy itself that the so-called shortage is actually just a thinning of the reserve requirement of 20-30 MW for two weeks in the summer of 2015. There is no need for drastic emergency powers to address this situation,” the group said in a statement.
Power said the DOE proposal would cost taxpayers about P6 billion to 10 billion.
Flimsy excuse
Colmenares questioned why the DOE had been quick to demand that the President be granted special powers under Epira on a “flimsy” excuse that some power plants would conk out or conduct some unscheduled maintenance.
The Bayan Muna representative said this was the same situation when Meralco requested a prohibitive rate hike for the higher cost of getting power supply when the Malampaya shut down last December for maintenance.
