By ROGER M. BALANZA
Renewable energy is still on its promotional stage. Coal-fired power plants are the cheapest sources of energy. The country is facing an energy crisis.
With these scenarios as a background, the Department of Energy is forced to support coal-fired plants as a solution to the looming crisis.
DoE Undersecretary Zamzamin Ampatuan said in Davao City last week that coal remains as a solution to the power crisis.
He told local media renewable energy sources may be a solution in the long-term, but “we cannot do away with coal yet.” Zamzamin however said DoE stands pat on its promotion of renewable energy sources, but advocacy could never be an answer at this point in time.
He said when the crisis hits Mindanao would be in a cold seat, as high demand during peak hours takes a toll on the Mindanao power grid.
Ampatuan bared DoE’s support for coal-fired power plants as Conal Holdings Corporation starts building a 200-megawat plant in Sarangani.
Majority-held by the Alcantara Group of Companies, the $450 million coal-fired power plant in coastal town Maasim help boost support for the 484-MW reserve requirement on the power supply needed by Mindanao.
Civil society and church groups fearing risk to health and environment are opposing the Conal project. The company has allayed public fears, with an investment of $7.5 million in reforestation of about 8,000 hectares to absorb carbon exhausts around the plant..
Gregorio S. Gonzales, project manager of Conal Holdings Corp., said the project consists of two phases: one, construction of the first 100-megawatt plant and the common facilities for the whole power station complex; two, construction of the second 100-megawatt capacity plant.
The plant will be in full operation by 2012, said Gonzales earlier in General Santos City, among areas to be supplied by the Conal Holdings plant.
In reports published in local papers on an earlier presentation to the General Santos City Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GSCCCI) and the South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative (Socoteco II) in November last year, Aboitiz Energy solutions warned that reserve capacity in Mindanao will fall to 7.5 per cent or 84 MW short of its 212 (MW) requirement in 2010.
Archimedes Flores, general manager of the sister company of Davao Light and Power Company, said by 2011, Mindanao will likely face a shortage of 174 megawatts (MW) of power supply.
Transmission Corporation (now the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines-NGCP) said that in 2008, the total dependable capacity in the island is only at 1,510 MW.
Generating plants are, however, required to keep 13 percent of its generating capacity for reserve, straining the reliability of power supply in the island as experienced by long and frequent power interruptions during the last several months.
Flores said the power demand in the island is projected to increase by at least 5.76 percent annually starting next year.
NGCP General Santos City manager Manuel Jamoy said based on the trend in demand growth, the company is projecting a 2,556 megawatt required capacity for the Mindanao grid by 2014 while the Department of Energy (DOE) pegged it at 2,283 megawatts.
In October last year, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes warned that by this year, electricity demand in the island will "outstrip supply in Mindanao."
The DOE said this year would already be critical for the Mindanao grid with peak demand reaching 1,525 megawatts excluding the additional capacity requirement of 100 megawatts.
For its part, Conal Holdings pegged the growth in power demand at a conservative three percent per annum in the preparation of its expansion plans using 2008 with a peak demand level of 1,288MW as the base year.
At this rate, the actual reserves in the Mindanao grid will likely fall to 60MW in 2014 and to 16MW in 2015 before completely going in deficit in 2016. When reserve capacity goes down to this level, any plant outage in the grid will lead to power outages. Thus, the completion of the second 100MW of the project in late 2014 will just be in time to stave off a regime of rolling brownouts due to a shortage in capacity in the Mindanao Grid.
Conal Holdings Corporation vice president for business development Joseph C. Nocos said whichever statistics are used in projecting the dependable and generating capacities in the island, Mindanao would most likely experience prolonged power interruptions if no new power plants are commissioned by then.
"When forecasting power demand, the relevant period for anticipating power supply demand is five years because it will take at least that long to plan, build and operate a power plant," Nocos said.
He said the 200-megawatt coal-fired power plant they will build will not totally solve the looming power shortage in the island, especially since "none of these projections anticipate the entry of large new industrial loads such as the Hanjin ship building facilities in Tagoloan or the new shopping malls that are coming up in General Santos City," Nocos added.
"But it will help ease the shortfall. What is paramount is for the Socoteco II to have a reliable and cheap source of power supply which our company will provide," he explained.
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