Short to long-term solutions to blackout

As we often hear and read now, the most expensive electricity is no electricity – blackout. Appliances and light bulbs are easily damaged, food in the refrigerator are spoiled, small shops with aircon are forced to close. The poor use candles and courting with fires, the rich can use gensets and it can be noisy while diesel is expensive. Rooftop solar is good but it must have battery and not export uncontracted, unneeded excess electricity at daytime when prices are lower than nighttime prices.

High WESM prices

The other day, Sept. 22, prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM)  daytime in Mindanao was P25/kwh, Visayas was P20/kwh. Horrible. Luzon has P10.80/kwh. Data from IEMOP.

In the last August electricity billing, WESM prices were P19.56/kwh in Mindanao, P18.59/kwh in Visayas and P4.80/kwh in Luzon. These are averages for the month, the nighttime prices are frequently higher than daytime prices because of many solar facilities now, both industrial and rooftop. Electricity supply at daytime is higher so prices are frequently lower than nighttime.

DOE press conference

Also the other day, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Sharon Garin said in a press conference that they are hoping for quick return to service (RTS) of a number of big but old coal plants in Visayas-Mindanao that suffered extended maintenance shutdown. Like TVI 1 (169 MW) and PEDC 3 (150 MW) in Cebu and Iloilo, GNPK units 2 and 3 (138 MW each) in Mindanao. Plus deployment of battery energy storage system (BESS) of 253 MW in the Visayas.

BESS, like transmission lines, are not producing electricity. They just store whatever excess electricity on certain hours of the day, like during cloudless noontime, cheap hydro at midnight, and so on.

ERC application of SPC in Visayas-Mindanao

Two weeks ago, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) ordered a regional application of secondary price cap (SPC) or price control. This is moving from national or system-wide grid trigger to regional grids.

I am no fan of price control, whether electricity, food, medicines, fare, house rental, etc. High prices are symptoms, not cause of the problem, which is generally the lack of supply relative to demand. But I understand the public and political pressures on ERC to curtail high prices. As I pointed to ERC chairman Nino Juan in their presscon a few months ago, ERC can regulate high prices when electricity is there, but ERC cannot regulate blackout, when electricity is not there.

Seeking solutions to regular yellow-red alerts

It is now 35 years since the horrible daily nationwide blackouts of 1991-1992 and we are back to discussing rotational blackout in Visayas-Mindanao. Many solutions from many sectors have been proposed, here are those solutions that I support.

Short-term. “Maybe DOE can consider implementing the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) in Visayas and Mindanao to reduce the demand. It works on shortage situations, maybe it can help in the short term.”

That is from Manny Rubio, Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN) president and CEO. I support his proposal as it is working in the Meralco area – big manufacturing plants, big hotels, malls, hospitals, industrial estates, etc. step back from the grid to allocate grid electricity to households and small companies, and turn on their big gensets and help increase power supply. The higher cost of power generation via gensets running on diesel will be reimbursed later by the distribution utilities via some adjustment in the generation charge.

Medium-term: DOE should lift or remove the moratorium on new coal power projects. The moratorium is not a law from Congress, only a Department or Administrative Order (AO) from former DOE Secretary Al Cusi in 2020. Hence the AO can be lifted by another DOE Secretary, Secretary Garin.

Visayas-Mindanao must get more new coal-gas plants, if they cannot get nuke plants. They need 24/7 electricity even if the sun is not shining, the wind not blowing, and rainy months are not coming yet.

Long-term: DOE should junk its “50 percent RE by 2040” agenda. DOE should instead target “50 percent TWH expansion by 2040” from 2025 level. High terawatt-hours (TWH) targeting, not high RE targeting. In 2025, Thailand has 200 TWH, Malaysia has 210 TWH, Vietnam has 329 TWH, Indonesia has 383 TWH while Philippines has only 129 TWH, very small compared to our neighbors.

We must target some 230 TWH power generation by 2040, regardless of energy source, fossil fuels or not. By 2033, both the Metro Manila Subway (Valenzuela to Pasay, 33 km long) and North South Commuter Railway (NSCR, Clark to Calamba, 147 km long) will start running. My estimate is that the subway will need some 200 plus MW of baseload power, the NSCR will need at least 350 MW of baseload power.

Thermal power and GTCOE

Two weeks ago, President Marcos visited the Global Technical Center of Excellence (GTCOE) as part of his tour of the LIMA Estate in Batangas. He was accompanied by Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, Secretary Garin, Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos-Recto, US and UK Ambassadors and Japan Embassy official.

They were welcomed by Aboitiz Power Corp (AP) chairman Sabin Aboitiz and other AP officials plus representatives from JERA, the largest energy company in Japan and a minority shareholder of AP.

The GTCOE serves as a hub for developing world-class technical talents across both companies to support the broader energy industry especially in thermal power generation.

Caloy Arcilla as PhilAtom head

I read many engineering societies in the Philippines endorsing Dr. Caloy Arcilla, former PNRI head, to be the first head of PhilAtom. I support the endorsement. Doc Caloy is a no-nonsense scientist and academic.