Tight power supply seen: Existing capacity enough but reserves thin – DOE

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines continues to brace for tight power supply this summer, with reserves estimated at 200 to 300 megawatts, the Department of Energy said.

“Based on our computation, there are reserves but it’s thin. At times, at the peak, there would be only 200 to 300 MW,” Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla said before leaving for Germany over the weekend to attend a study tour on renewable energy.

A tight supply means that based on the computation, there is enough existing capacity to cover the projected demand but that reserves are thin to cover unforeseen events such as if a power plant goes on unplanned shutdown.

“If we have a repeat of the situation in November and December when a plant went on unplanned shutdown, we will have a problem but if the plants don’t go down, we have more than enough for this summer. We cannot afford major plants to go down. That’s our problem,” Petilla said.

According to data from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the country’s transmission highway operator, the highest peak demand will come in the month of May at 8,654 MW in Luzon with available capacity at 9,689 MW.

In the Visayas region, highest demand is estimated at 1,554 MW against an available capacity of 1,679 MW while Mindanao will have a peak demand of 1,400 MW against available capacity of 1,432 MW.

Petilla has also tapped big power users for the so-called Interruptible Load Program or ILP.

“As early as December we already gathered industry players who are willing to participate. There have been series of meetings with the industry players. There’s a total of roughly around 2,000 MW of generating capacity from back-up generators in the franchise area of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco). For the purpose of doing a pilot, we focused on 500MW, and our focus is industry players and also malls,” he said.

“What’s in it for them? Not only are they going to help with the generation if they are called and if they are needed but at that particular time they also get paid,” Petilla added.

He said Meralco would pay them for the generation cost to be recovered from consumers.

Inevitably, it would be expensive but there would be no blackouts, Petilla said.

Under the program, entities with at least one MW power source can use their own generators instead of sourcing their power from the grid.