DoE assures stable power supply during the holidays

CEBU, Philippines - Consumers are assured of enough power supply this Christmas holiday despite the current low power reserves in the Visayas grid, the Department of Energy (DoE) said yesterday.

Saul Gonzales, chief of the Energy Industry Management Division at DoE-Visayas, said the grid has been on a yellow alert status due to low reserves but assured there is stable supply.

"The supply is okay but the reserves have decreased," Saul said in an interview, attributing this to the holiday season demand.

The energy official said that most factories normally increase production this season to meet their inventories, prompting the demand for power to go up.

In its power situation outlook for yesterday, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said the Visayas grid had an available capacity of 1,728 megawatts (MW) against a 1,698-MW demand, leaving reserves of 30 MW.

So far this year, the highest peak demand in Visayas was recorded last month on the 17th, which reached 1,766 MW, higher than 1,598 MW in the same month last year, showed a report on Visayas grid system operations provided by Gonzales.

The report also indicated that the highest recorded available capacity in the Visayas grid as of November was 1,915 MW while the highest reserve was 295 MW.

In an interview in June this year, DoE-Visayas Director Antonio Labios had predicted power reserves to be lower starting September until this month.

Gonzales said that the power situation will eventually normalize and that he assured enough supply during the Sinulog festival and the International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu next month.  (FREEMAN)