Traders urge gov’t to optimize hydro capacity in Mindanao

MANILA, Philippines - Businessmen urged the government to optimize the capacity of competitively priced hydroelectric power plants in Mindanao to bring down the cost of power in the island, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) said.

PCCI vice-president Ricky Juliano said Mindanaoans are not opposed to higher but are hoping for better use of hydroelectric power plants in Mindanao in order to average down the effect of the higher-cost fossil plants.

PCCI urged the government to come up with a feasible and sustainable program capable of providing the fastest available supply at a reasonable price.

Quoting data from the Mindanao Development Authority-Mindanao Power Monitoring Commission, PCCI said that even if the 15-megawatt Iligan Diesel Power Plant (IDPP) is already in operation this month, the resulting available capacity of 1,266 MW would still be 76-MW short of the projected peak demand of 1,299 MW. 

“And except for areas with embedded power generation capacity, daily power outages is bound to persist until 2016 when new coal-fired power plants presently under construction will go on stream,” the PCCI said.

Robert Mallillin, chairman of the PCCI Power Committee,  said one solution is to make coal-fired, geothermal, and diesel plants the baseload generators, and to use the hydro plants during peak hours.

He said the peak-hour requirement of the whole of Mindanao is at 1,134 MW as against the total generating capacity of 1,884 megawatts if fully explored and utilized, with diesel contributing 650 MW, hydro at 924.1 MW and coal, geothermal and renewable energy at 308 MW. 

He said this should leave Mindanao with excess capacity of some 750 MW.

The power shortage has endured because of the policy of using hydro as baseload plant and hence first to be dispatched, leading to the under-utilization of diesel-fired power plants, he added.

“Amending the dispatch protocol to allow coal, geothermal and diesel to be dispatched first as baseload plants will encourage fossil fuel plants to run at full capacity,” Mallillin said.