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KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines—The daily power outages in North Cotabato have gone from bad to worse, with the duration of the interruptions now stretching from six to eight hours due to on-going repair work on two major power generators in Lanao del Norte and Misamis Oriental.
Godofredo Homez, general manager of the Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Cotelco), said the cooperative was now implementing rotating brownouts in the towns that it services in light of various repairs and maintenance shutdown of power plants, including hydro power facilities, which are the major sources of electricity in Mindanao.
The Unit 2 of STEAG State Power Inc. (SPI), a coal-fired power plant in Misamis Oriental, is currently on an unplanned shutdown after it developed technical problems on July 29. Shutting down the unit was necessary to prevent further damage to the generator, Cotelco said, citing from STEAG.
Compounding the problem was the shutdown of Agus 4 hydro electric power plant in Lanao del Norte, which resulted in the additional rotating brownouts in parts of Mindanao expected to last until mid-October.
North Cotabato’s power requirement is 28 megawatts but due to limited supply from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), it gets only 18 MW, including that supplied by Therma Marine Inc.
“As an electric distribution utility, we are forced to effect load curtailment in our service area from time to time depending on the advice of NGCP until such time that these power plants will be back on line,” Homez said.
“All of us suffer here; we seek your understanding and patience,” Homez said, reminding consumers to unplug appliances during brownouts so as to prevent accidents when power comes on again.
In South Cotabato, the South Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Socoteco I) started implementing a one-hour-and-a-half power interruption Friday.
On March 30 last year former National Economic and Development Authority chief Dr. Gerardo Sicat published a paper on the Mindanao power problem, describing it as a crisis waiting to happen.
“Inaction on the required policy front meant that the day of reckoning would simply arrive and blow up the picture. That has now become a reality,” he said.
He said lack of strong national leadership on the issue permitted conflicting interests to create a stalemate in decision making. He recalled the power crisis of Luzon during the early 1990s.
“It cost the nation almost a decade of sporadic power supply interruptions. That crisis has hampered our international competitiveness to this day,” according to Sicat.