DOE adopts 4-pronged strategy to ease power woes in Luzon

MANILA, Philippines–The Department of Energy is pursuing four measures to lessen the possibility of power outages in Luzon by the summer of 2015.

Noting that by now, there is not enough time to rent or lease capacity for the summer months next year, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla said his department was doing four things: continuing to invite participants to the Interruptible Load Program (ILP), seeking commitments from public and private entities to save energy, meeting with energy industry players to minimize forced plant outages, and working on getting the President emergency powers to fast-track energy projects.

The Luzon grid needs about 700 megawatts (MW) of extra power capacity to cover reserve requirements in case of unforeseen plant outages.

Under the ILP, participating institutions and companies may be called upon to voluntarily use their own power generating units to ease demand from the grid during peak hours or whenever there is supply deficit.

The DOE has also factored in about 101MW of dependable ILP capacity in its calculations, considering that about 202MW were pledged by public and private institutions.

DOE also noted that there might be additional capacity from several power projects. It said 100MW would come from First Gen Corp.’s Avion gas power plant, 20MW from the rehabilitation of the Bauang diesel power plant also of First Gen, 60MW thermal power plant from JG Summit, and 20MW from CBK Power Co. Ltd.’s Botocan hydroelectric power plant.

The House of Representatives Energy Committee has virtually ruled out the option of having the DOE rent generation sets for back-up power.