Napocor to cut share of oil-based plants in its power mix

National Power Corp. (Napocor) plans to bring down the power generated from oil-based plants to 4.9 percent of total in 2006 or the equivalent of 2,980 gigawatthours (gwh), a sharp decline from the projected 10.8 percent (6,369 gwh) this year.

Juan Carlos Guadarrama, Napocor vice president for logistics, said the move is consistent with the overall thrust of the government to minimize the utilization of oil-fired power plants to protect the consuming public from the impact of the continued spike in crude oil prices in the world market.

In 2004, oil-based power plants accounted for 15.2 percent or 8,504 gwh of power output. A gigawatthour is equivalent to one million kilowatthours.

Next year, natural gas is still projected to capture the bulk of power generation in the country at 36.6 percent (22,146 gwh) from 32.1 percent (18,872 gwh) in 2005.

Last year, natural gas generated 22.1 percent (12,384 gwh) of the overall generation mix.

The share of coal-fired power facilities, on the other hand, will go down slightly in 2006 to 25.3 percent (15,307.80 gwh) from 26 percent (15,307 gwh) in 2005 while the utilization of geothermal plants in the generation mix will go up to 19.8 percent (11,972 gwh) from the projected 17.4 percent (10,237 gwh) this year.

Hydropower will also go down slightly next year to 13.4 percent (8,142 gwh) from 13.7 percent (8,095 gwh) this year. Hydropower accounted for 15.4 percent of total (8,592 gwh) in 2004.

For Napocor alone, it has set its most ambitious target for reducing the utilization of oil-based plants on a per grid basis.

In the Luzon grid, Napocor expects to bring down the share of oil based power plants to 1.23 percent from 10.26 percent in 2004.

The share of oil-based plants in the Visayas grid is also expected to go down from 11.3 percent to 4.37 percent, year-on-year.

The only exception to this over-all thrust would be the Mindanao grid, where Napocor is expecting the share of oil-fired plants to go up slightly.