Small power producers want access to Luzon grid

MANILA, Philippines - Small-scale power generators are urging the government to go beyond the load curtailment program of the Department of Energy to address the looming power shortage in Luzon.

“We must draw up a program that lets all willing private generators feed to the grid. There is so much capacity available — more than 2000 kilowatts — that can be utilized to avert the power crisis. By all, we mean anyone with 50 kw or more must be encouraged to run their generator sets and feed their output to the grid.  We need to allow net metering for all sources and all sizes of power,” said Roland Lorilla, president of Applied Systems Manufacturing, a local generator set manufacturer.

He said small-scale power generators are as capable of producing power as the big generators are, but may only help in solving the power crisis through the net metering scheme.

As such, he said President Aquino must use special powers to allow the small generators to operate at peak load and efficiency through net metering.

It would allow excess capacity to be fed to the grid to fill the shortfall in capacity, Lorilla said.

“To do this requires President Aquino to use the special powers given by Congress to decree that grid intertie and net metering be allowed. Grid intertie and net metering are currently not allowed for diesel generator sets. We must change this,” he said.

Intertie refers to the interconnection that allows the passage of current between two or more electric utility systems.

The net metering system is provided for under the Renewable Energy Law of 2008. It allows electricity end-users who are updated in the payment of their electricity bills to their distribution utility to sell excess power.

But net metering is allowed only for renewable energy generation.

At present, Lorilla said, the current energy generation of the country relies only on big power plants to produce power.

He believes that if two hour rotating blackouts happen as predicted this summer, the country’s image as an investment site would be affected.