Kidapawan seeks preferential treatment in Mindanao power crisis
KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines—Officials of Kidapawan City are pressing the Philippine National Oil Company’s Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC) to abide by a Department of Energy ruling that says hosts of power-generation facilities must be given preferential treatment in the allocation of electricity whenever there is a power crisis.
The city hosts the Mindanao geothermal power plants, which were installed at the Mt. Apo national park.
Mayor Rodolfo Gantuangco said the current power crisis in Mindanao, which has resulted in daily power outages of more than seven hours, should already have prompted PNOC-EDC to abide by the DoE rule but so far the government-run company has not done so.
Gantuangco said under the rule, PNOC-EDC should allocate at least 25 percent of its generated power to the city, it being the host of the geothermal plants.
Gantuangco said if PNOC-EDC only abided by the DoE rule, Kidapawan and the rest of North Cotabato would have fewer hours of power outages because it would translate to about 26 megawatts of power. The two geothermal plants generate slightly more than 100 megawatts.
He said redirecting power to the Cotabato Electric Coop. (Cotelco), which services the province, should not be a problem because an existing line connects the power cooperative to the geothermal plants.
The problem, Gantuangco said, was that PNOC-EDC has not acted on the city’s demand. Instead, PNOC-EDC wants to construct another geothermal plant.
Gantuangco said the city government has vowed to block the construction of the third facility on Mt. Apo unless their demand for preferential treatment is met.
Godofredo Homez, Cotelco manager, said they had contracted power from the Aboitiz-run Therma Marine Inc. (TMI) to ease the suffering of the province’s electricity consumers.
Joel Tordesillas, chief of Cotelco’s service area in Pigcawayan, Aleosan and Midsayap, said the contract with TMI would result in a higher power rate but that would be better than long hours of power outages.
He said Cotelco expected the Energy Regulatory Commission to approve the provisional increase that the cooperative sought in the wake of the contract with TMI.
