Napocor acts to ensure power supply in Mindanao

MANILA, Philippines - State-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor), together with the attached agencies of the Department of Energy, are making headway to ensure that there will be adequate power supply in Mindanao during the first automated National and local elections in the country on May 10, 2010.

Napocor vice president for corporate services Urbano C. Mendiola said that among other mitigating measures, Napocor’s Mindanao Generation Group’s strategy of increasing water drawdown from Lake Lanao from the present 30 cubic meters per second (cms) to as much as 110 cms on May 9 to 11 will provide substantial additional capacity to the grid. 

The higher water discharges from Lake Lanao will enable National Power’s cascading hydroelectric plants along the AgusRiver to increase their total output four-fold from the present 110 megawatts (MW) to 529 MW.

The output of the Agus Power Plants had drastically dropped by more than 80 percent due to the low water level at Lake Lanao following the onset of the El Niño phenomenon. 

As of April 23, the six power plants making up the Agus Power Complex, as well as the other National Power-owned power plants in Mindanao, namely; Pulangui IV, Iligan Diesel Power Plant I, and Power Barge 104, had a combined output of 263 MW only, or roughly 25 percent of the their total installed capacity of 1,039 MW.

The water elevation of Lake Lanao, meanwhile, stood at 698.82 meters above mean sea level (amsl), or 33 centimeters below the curtailment level of 699.15 amsl. 

In compliance with its Environmental Clearance Certificate for the Agus Complex, Napocor limits its drawdowns from Lake Lanao whenever water elevation is between 699.15 amsl and 698.15 amsl. 

He said this is why the six Agus plants, which have been designed to produce more than 700 MW, can only generate just over 100 MW at present. 

“Once the water level breaches the 698.15 amsl-mark, Napocor will be constrained to shut down the operations of the entire Agus complex,” he said.

He added that “This is why we have been implementing a strict water conservation strategy in Agus since October last year, so that we can continue operating the plants.” 

“Other mitigating measures lined-up by National Power to increase power supply in Mindanao are: the re-powering of IDPP-1 (30-40 MW) and the availment of the excess five MW capacity of SPPC. So far, Napocor has already commissioned IDPP-1 to generate 30 MW and has commenced nomination of the additional five MW capacity of SPPC,” he said.

Napocor has also requested its directly connected customers to shutdown or trim-down their operations on May 9-11, 2010 as part of the overall contingency plan of the DOE. 

“We are anticipating that our customers will favorably respond to our request, which will yield a demand reduction of about 100 MW,” he said.

Earlier, the DOE and the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines have also assured that there will be enough power supply on May 10 given the offer of some private power generators and self-generators to supply additional capacities either directly to the cooperatives or to the grid.