Gov’t urged to tap special powers to solve electricity shortage

FILE PHOTO

MANILA—The Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) is urging the Department of Energy to tap the emergency powers provided under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) so the government could start contracting additional generating capacities from its members.

This move is seen to help avert a power supply shortage, which is estimated would reach 300 to 400 megawatts by 2015.

In a statement, FPI chairman Jesus Lim Arranza explained that the federation’s members, whose core business is manufacturing, have no intention of selling their excess capacities to the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) as they lack the expertise and experience in electricity trading.

According to Arranza, the FPI members are more than willing to support the efforts of the DOE to address a looming power supply crunch in 2015. They are, however, asking the government for a simpler arrangement to operationalize proposals to tap their backup generators.

Should the DOE invoke Section 71 of Epira, which will allow government to engage in power generation and selling following the declaration of an “imminent power shortage” and the granting of emergency powers, the government should also take on the responsibility of managing and dispatching the contracted capacities from FPI members, and of collecting the payments under a mutually acceptable compensation scheme, Arranza said.

“Indeed, if this is immediately laid down and implemented, this could very well prepare the country in mitigating the imminent power problem,” Arranza added.

Earlier this week, the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines urged government leaders and company executives to invest in energy efficiency initiatives and programs to help avert the impending power shortage.

Henry Schumacher, ECCP vice president for external affairs, said that implementing energy conservation alone would easily “save 20 to 30 percent of energy consumption, and that is easily the capacity of the power plant we need as soon as possible or the energy deficiency we are facing in the years to come.”