Power shortage looms again over Mindanao – DOE

Mindanao will again face power shortages next year on the back of dwindling energy reserves in the region, an Energy Department official said on Wednesday. Despite this, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said that for the rest of 2011, Mindanao's power needs can be met by the current capacity. Almendras said Mindanao's power supply hinges so much on the weather, making it "challenging" to predict power output for next year. "If you're gonna get really hot summers and problems with the hydro levels then, although PAGASA made an announcement that we're entering the La Niña phase again, if that happens, we'll be okay and hopefully the new power plants come online by 2013," he explained. Since the new power plants are not yet operational, Almendras said they cannot afford to be complacent about Mindanao's energy woes. "We're not happy with the reserve levels in Mindanao. We're lucky that the hydro (power plants) in Mindanao is doing well. No major breakdown. It’s ok but it's still not stable," he said. Short by 450 MW Based on earlier assessments, Mindanao will run 450 megawatts (MW) short come 2015 if no new capacities are built to replenish the reserves. For most of the island, this could mean up to 12-hour daily outages. To counter this, Almendras said the DOE would be commissioning additional capacities from the Iligan power plant. "We're trying to get as much as we can. Hopefully, we can get the Iligan (plant) to come online in a few months' time," he said. Almendras said the department is also working on the possible deployment of power barges in the province. But the department is still threshing out whether to privatize the power barges first before moving them to Mindanao. The Energy chief likewise called on companies to invest in Mindanao to help the government in thwarting a possible power crisis. "[Right now], there are more [investors] interested," he said. A cursory review of the government's power supply demand data would also be beneficial, he added, since the agency overestimated the calculations in 2010. "We did not hit the peaks that we saw. We may have to revise, [since] last time, we had aggressive estimates. We [had] to be safe, so we went for 7900 MW peak but that did not happen, and the demand structure is improving, the sales of electricity is going up with all the BPOs, call centers," he said. —JMT/VS, GMA News