Mindanao generators idle amid brownouts

AMID the puzzling absence of a comprehensive government solution to the power shortage in Mindanao, some areas are taking the innovative way to bring electricity to their constituents, like the town of Pagawayan in Lanao del Sur province, which last year started building a mini hydro facility on a stream near a mosque. RICHEL V. UMEL/INQUIRER MINDANAO

DAVAO CITY—One of the solutions to the recurring shortage of power in Mindanao is staring officials and business groups in the face but cannot be tapped because of the lack of a government permit to do so.

Electric cooperatives in Mindanao have bought generator sets, which are not currently running, under a program by the Department of Energy (DOE) to lend money for the purchase by cooperatives or power distributors of generator sets as a temporary solution to the shortage of electricity that continues to grip Mindanao.

But the cooperatives cannot use the generators to help boost the supply of electricity in many areas of Mindanao, which are currently suffering rotating brownouts that last up to 10 hours a day.

The reason? The cooperatives have no permit to run the generators from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), the government body that reviews and supervises power rates and the operations of power utilities.

The Mindanao Power Monitoring Committee (MPMC), created by Malacañang to oversee efforts to find solutions to Mindanao’s power crisis, has asked the ERC to allow distributors, including cooperatives, to use their generator sets.

The committee, led by the Mindanao Development Authority (Minda), was created last year.

In a meeting on Friday, the MPMC also asked power distributors to convince bulk users of electricity, like factories and office buildings, to reduce electric consumption to ease the pressure on the Mindanao grid.

The bulk users, according to the MPMC, should also be encouraged to use their own generating sets, which could also help add supply to the Mindanao grid.

“We find it viable to quickly resolve the supply deficit by tapping what is already available in the system,” said Luwalhati Antonino, Minda chair and MPMC head.

The Mindanao block in Congress, however, is demanding an investigation.

North Cotabato Rep. Nancy Catamco  said she supported the demand for an investigation first made by South Cotabato Rep. Ferdinand Hernandez.

In Cagayan de Oro City,

Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said Mindanao lawmakers were also moving for the abolition of the Interim Mindanao Electricity Market (Imem) because its “presence and structure are prejudicial to the people of Mindanao.”

Imem, patterned after the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in Luzon and the Visayas as a means to trade and dispatch power to distribution companies and cooperatives, was labeled a “big foolishness” by Sergio Dagooc, head of the 33-member Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperative.

Dagooc said the DOE had been insisting on Imem even if it meant higher power rates. He said that aside from paying higher power rates, Mindanao consumers were also being made to bankroll the operations of Imem to the tune of P34 million a month.

“We’d rather buy power directly from power generators than purchase power from Imem, which has an additional cost, for the same amount of energy,” Dagooc said. Allan Nawal, Williamor Magbanua and Bobby Lagsa, Inquirer Mindanao