Power shortfall in Visayas as much as 220 megawatts

CEBU, Philippines - The Visayas Grid yesterday experienced a shortfall in power during peak hours due to zero contingency reserve and generation deficiency.

Belinda Canlas, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines corporate communications officer-Visayas, said that the grid experienced a deficit of up to 220 megawatts during weekday peak hours with the shutdown of the three power plants in the grid.

These are the 50 MW Cebu Thermal 1 Plant, the 50 MW gas turbines of Salcon Power and the 120 MW Mahanagdong geothermal power plant in Leyte.

Canlas said that the first two plants are under preventive maintenance shutdown to make way for maintenance works or repairs, which will improve power facilities and services.

She said that Unit 2 of Mahanagdong is expected to be back online on February 8 while the Unit 1 is expected to be back on the grid on February 16.

Cebu Thermal 1 Plant, on the other hand, will be available starting February 23 yet.

Canlas further said that to reduce the impact of power interruptions to the customers, the Luzon Grid started augmenting its supply between to the Visayas Grid to between 70 to 100 MW yesterday morning.

At 2 p.m. yesterday, it was as high as 150 MW.

Ethel Natera, spokesperson of the Visayan Electric Company (VECO), said that power situation is break-even due to availability of Luzon’s supply to the Visayas grid during the day.

However, Natera said at around 6 p.m., power shortage was experienced affecting parts of Mandaue City and downtown Cebu City.

Gwen: No Cause For Alarm

Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia yesterday said the 200 MW shortfall in power supply for the Visayas should not be a caused for alarm.

She assured the business sector that immediate measures were undertaken to address the problem.

Garcia told reporters that the 10-day temporary power situation caused by the Mahalagdong preventive maintenance shutdown, as well as some problems encountered by other power plants should not raise alarms bells unnecessarily.

“I remind everybody this is a temporary situation that we are facing, as we have reminded everyone time and again. We are doing something about the power situation.” Garcia said.

She said that two power plants are being constructed promises to supply a total of 446 MW.

“To allay fears of others I am calling for a meeting tomorrow, of all concerned players, in order to address a temporary solution to a temporary situation.”

Last week, officials of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) announced the 200 MW power shortage and explained it needed 10 days to conduct preventive maintenance on the Mahanagdong geothermal power plant starting last January 30.

Garcia said that they should not even try and ring their hands in despair and frustration and believe that this would scare away investors from Cebu.

“This kind of attitude is like we are banging our own head with our own hammer,” Garcia said.

Garcia added that they already are looking at a more effective implementation of the interruptible load agreement.

She urged the business sector, which has voiced their concern about the shortage to do their share of solving the problem.

According to Garcia, several members of the business chambers have their own power generating capacity and can sign up to join the interruptible load agreement.

“Para kadtong mga ordinary nga konsumidor nga waly kapasidad dili maoy mag-antos,” said Garcia.

Praise For Cemex

Several officials have praised Cemex for the additional 10 MW it provides VECO from its power plant.

Though this may not be much, it helps alleviate the lack of power.

Cemex, a cement manufacturing company based in Naga City, formally opened its substation yesterday.

Darwin Mariano, Cemex’ public affairs director, said that the new CEMEX-VECO substation, a diesel-powered plant, has already started dispatching 10MW of its excess supply to Cebu since December last year.

 The move, he said, is to “help alleviate” the province’s power shortages.

City Officials Also Act

Acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is scheduled to separately meet today with the officials of VECO and the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Rama wants to be apprised of the power situation and decided to also meet Comelec to get some ideas about addressing power problems during the May 10 elections.

Rama said that one way to minimize the shortage of power is for the power consumers to minimize the unnecessary use of their appliances.

One of the solutions about the power shortage is the scheduled operation of one of the power plants owned by the Cebu Energy Development Corp. in barangay Sangi, Toledo City in the middle of this month. – with Jose Sollano, Liv Campo and Rene Borromeo/NLQ (FREEMAN NEWS)