A power summit to solve our power needs?

For the past two weeks, we’ve written about the deaths of friends and family, where we wrote articles eulogizing those who left us for life eternal. My last article Monday was about the death of Archt. Gregorio “Dodi” Segura, the eldest sibling in my family line of Seguras. As we said, “Death comes in Threes”.

Last weekend, I went to the town of Tuburan to spend a weekend at the Playa Linnea beach house of my high school classmate, Mr. Enrique “Quito” and Susan Fararrons, and his partner Alex Pimentel with their children. We had a very nice short vacation, especially went we visited the Tuburan Museum. On Sunday, my dear friend, Fr. Lucas Inoc went to the beach house to offer the Holy Mass with us.

The least I expected last Sunday was another bad news, but unfortunately, it came in a text message from my brother-in-law Allan Rosello who told me that Rey Tenazas, the husband of his sister (Jessica’s younger sister) Susan succumbed to a heart attack early dawn Sunday. This news was unexpected, but Rey was admittedly a high-risk person as he never stopped smoking and drinking despite having an enlarged heart.

So what I wrote last week, that death comes in threes was wrong! It comes in fours now. I hope and pray that it stops with my brother-in-law. Vigil for his remains is in his mother’s residence at the Tenazas Compound in Busay Hills adjacent to the Busay National High School. Somehow, Rey and Cerge Remonde had similarities; they both smoked and they have no children. Once again, for the 4th time, may we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of his soul.

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That we are having rotating brownouts at this time is due to a simple fact that we have a serious lack of supply in our power needs and a huge demand for power! More than a year ago, we were already appraised of the dire power situation in Cebu, compounded by the fact that Metro Manila is also experiencing a power shortage, which this week turned from bad to worse because many power plants are now having its maintenance schedules because the power companies wanted to assure the public that come May during election time, we won’t be having power outages.

In fairness to the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) which used to be known as “Transco” they have been feeding the media with daily reports on the areas and time that they would be affected by the brownouts so that the people can be prepared. Of course, it would help a lot if certain homes or offices use less energy at this very critical time, which hopefully would ease up this coming March, as Jess Alcordo of Global Power told us.

Right now, Cebu’s only hope is the activation of the “Clean Coal” power plants of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. in Sangi, Toledo that is expected to be on stream by the first week of March or even mid-February giving us the first batch of 82 megawatts, (actually it’s a net of 72mw). This will be followed by the activation of the second power unit by the first week of June. Hopefully by the end of 2010 all three power units would be fully operational. Then there’s the Kepco Power Plant, which is expected to be operational hopefully very soon.

So this means, we’ve got the entire month of February to tighten out belts and bite the proverbial bullet and suffer through the rolling brownouts. In the meantime, we just have to do what we have to do - use less energy and save on power. While our power problems is a negative for Cebu’s growth, we should count it as a blessing that despite the financial crunch, Cebu’s need for power continues to grow, which is clear proof that business in Cebu is bustling and the power suppliers just can’t cope up with the demand.

While we’re in the midst of suffering through these brownouts, may I suggest that the big Three Business groups - Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc., the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. and the Cebu Business Club come up with a “Power Summit” for Cebu. It should involve our political leadership and stakeholders from the power industry to map out plans to address or even predict the energy needs of Cebu or the Visayas.

If at all we are having this problem at this time, it is because we just can’t produce power plants instantly; they need at least two to three years to construct! What the Energy Summit ought to do is come up with a baseline figure as to where our energy needs would be in a particular year. If we have to, we must build more power plants to address our future needs and more importantly, what kind of power plants we should install.

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