Shift to costlier fuels raises power rates

PROTESTERS at a rally in Quezon City carry placards designed to look like light bulbs to demand a rejection by Congress of President Aquino’s request for emergency powers to deal with a projected energy crisis. LYN RILLON

DIGOS CITY—Consumers throughout Mindanao are being charged more for electricity as distribution firms turn to more expensive sources of power to fill the gap left by the continuing disrepair of hydropower facilities and the maintenance shutdown of a coal plant.

The Davao del Sur Electric Cooperative (Dasureco), based in this city, said the shortage of supply forced it to use modular generator sets, which use diesel.

Plus taxes

Godofredo Guya, Dasureco general manager, said Dasureco’s 68,000 customers would have to pay at least P1 more per kilowatt-hour (kWh) or from P8.20 to P9.20 per kWh.

Guya, however, said the added cost is for generation and transmission charges and taxes. “Meaning if they paid P1 to Dasureco, 80 centavos of that will go to the other charges,” he said.

Hydropower plants in Mindanao could not supply enough electricity because of low water levels and repairs, said Guya.

Other distributors of power in Mindanao had been forced to implement rotating brownouts, he added.

The shortage was worsened when a coal plant, which started operating in 2006 and owned by Steag State Power Inc. (SPI), was shut down for maintenance. It has a capacity of 105 megawatts.

The situation would not ease until next month, however, according to Jerome Soldevilla, SPI spokesperson.

He said up to 220 MW would be lost when SPI shuts down another of its coal plant from Feb. 21-March 16.

“These maintenance activities are part of the company’s commitment to sustain quality customer service,” Soldevilla said.

He said the maintenance schedule was carefully planned and closely coordinated with the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and approved by the grid operator, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP).

It was not immediately known how many hours the outages would last but last year, many Mindanao areas suffered up to 10 hours of brownouts daily when SPI power plants conked out.

With SPI plants online, the supply of electricity in Mindanao could reach 1,351 MW. Demand peaks at 1,348 MW.

Recurring

In Davao City, Rodolfo del Rosario, Southern Mindanao Regional Development Council chair and Davao del Norte governor, said power shortage in Mindanao is a recurring problem.

Quoting government data, Del Rosario said Mindanao faces a shortage of up to 484 MW this year.

The council, he said, is pinning its hopes on the completion of several power plants, all of them coal-based.

These include the 300-MW coal-fired power plant in Toril district in Davao City owned by Aboitiz Power, the 300-MW coal-fired power plant owned by San Miguel Consolidated-Global Power Corp. (SMC-GPC) in Malita, Davao Occidental province, and the 210-MW coal-fired plant owned by the Sarangani Energy Corp. (SEC) in Maasim, Sarangani province. Reports from Orlando Dinoy, Bobby Lagsa and Judy Quiros, Inquirer Mindanao