Arroyo open to emergency powers

Saturday, 06 March 2010 05:10 PM Maui A. Hermitanio

Malacanang officials said they are looking into other legal options on how to implement Section 71 of the Electric Power Industry Act (EPIRA) and the possibility of invoking the power crisis provision without the need for Congress to convene into a special session.

A report from GMA News said that the president is conferring with legal experts if it is possible for her to act on the power situation without Congress’ approval. Earlier this week, Arroyo said she will adopt the proposal of Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes to declare a power crisis in Mindanao with the region’s worsening energy supply deficit.

Emergency powers will allow the President to short-term power supply contracts and lease or purchase new generator sets that will provide additional 130 megawatt (MW) to 140 MW supply in Mindanao.

Reyes proposed the leasing or rental of 160 MW gensets; the operation and maintenance of the Alsons Corporation’s 30-MW Iligan Diesel Power Plant 1 (IDPP); entering into an operation and maintenance agreement with Alsons Corporation for the 70MW IDPP2; and entering into a contract on an additional five MW from Southern Philippines Power Corp. (MW) - which is jointly owned by Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Conal Holdings Corp., and Tomen Power Corp. of Singapore.

However, this will need Congress’ approval. Officials said it will be hard to call a special session of Congress as many candidates are now focused on the electoral campaign.

Many sectors are opposing the granting of emergency powers for Arroyo saying she is not a ‘fairy godmother of Mindanao’ who can raise water levels.

Supply situation worsens

The National Power Grid Corporation (NPGC), the private operator of the country’s transmission network again raised alerts on the power supply deficits in Luzon and Mindanao.

The shortage in Luzon has reached 641 megawatts (MW) while that of Mindanao has reached 700 MW, Inquirer online reported.

The supply in Luzon was affected by breakdowns and maintenance schedule of various power plants.

Sunstar reported that the shortage was compounded by the outage of the Magat hydroelectric plant owned by the Aboitiz Power Corporation. Magat went off line this week due to low water reservoir while only one unit of CBK Power Company’s Kalayaan hydro plant is operational.

Luzon’s peak demand hit 6,842 MW higher than the available capacity of 6,408 MW.

Since Monday, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) implemented rotating brownouts within its distribution area in Metro Manila, Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Pampanga, Quezon, and Rizal. According to NPGC, the supply in Luzon will remain unstable and critical.

Even worse is the condition in Mindanao that has a shortage of 711 MW from its peak demand of 1,361 MW. The region relies mainly on hydro power plants for electricity and the very low water inflow to reservoirs resulted to a huge drop in power generation capacity.

NGCP revealed that 5 to 12 hours rotating brownouts happen in the region and the situation will continue for the next 30 days.

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