Retail industry sector says: SMEs bear brunt of power outages

CEBU, Philippines - The small and medium industries that don’t have their own generator sets are taking the brunt of the recent power outages brought about by the lack of supply for the Cebu-Negros-Panay Grid.

Two-hour power outages hit many areas around Cebu yesterday due to the huge deficit in supply, which reached 260 mega watts for the entire grid late yesterday morning.

Robert Go, director of the Philippine Retailers Association-Cebu said that 99 percent of the small and medium enterprises control more than half of Cebu’s economy.

“It’s a big loss to SMEs since they do not have their own genset. Only malls and big companies have their own genset. As to how much money is lost, it cannot be quantified,” Go said.

Ethel Natera, spokesperson of the Visayan Electric Company Inc. said that VECO was asked by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to shed at least 90 MW.

Due to the huge amount of power that VECO had to shed and the “very high consumption,” Natera said that in their franchise area, the rotation brownout has to be extended to two hours.

Natera said that VECO’s system demand as of yesterday reached to 344 MW.

“The grid supply shortage is so huge we have to share in the manual load dropping even with the power given by our IPPs (Independent Power Producers) and ILPs (Interruptible Load Program),” Natera added.

Rey Maleza, Department of Energy-Energy Industry Management Division supervisor said that the utility firms have to resort to rotating brownouts due to the limited generation in the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid.

Maleza said that some power plants in these areas are either not generating power due to preventive maintenance while other power plants are producing less than their capacity.

“Negros and Panay are even experiencing three-hour brownouts. Deficient gyud ang power nga na generate sa CNP grid,” Maleza said.

Maleza added that power demand in the Visayas increased due to high temperature.

“There is a high demand for electricity from customers due to high temperature we are experiencing now,” Natera further said.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said that the hottest temperature recorded in Cebu yesterday was 36.6 degrees Centigrade around 2 p.m.

VECO, in a separate statement said that power supply in CNP grid remains to be of great concern in the coming months with no available power reserves.

“Whenever a single power plant serving the CNP grid breaks down or is under preventive maintenance, brownouts/power interruptions occur, especially during peak periods,” the statement read.

For VECO, peak periods would mean from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

During these times, consumption of electricity is at its highest.

To minimize inconvenience on the part of the customers, VECO is giving this notice as a guide if a power supply shortage occurs.

“The schedule is not a guarantee that you will be interrupted on your assigned time. A manual load shedding or power interruption scheme will be implemented depending on the available power supply and the power consumption of the customers at that particular time,” the statement added.

The advise on whether VECO needs to interrupt certain areas will come from the NGCP, the company which serves as a “traffic control center” for power coming from the power suppliers and the need for power by the distribution companies.

Maleza added that we have no new power plant available and hopefully the operation of the new power plants in Cebu, which is still under construction will help ease out power shortage in the CNP grid.

Natera added that power consumers in Cebu will continue to experience rotating brownouts until the end of the year as new power plants has still to be on-line by next year.

A 200-megwatt power supply coming from the Korean Electric Company or Kepco and the remaining two more units of the coal-fired power plant of the Cebu Energy Development, are still expected to go on-line by the end of May and the end of December 2011, respectively.

Cebu 4th District Congressman-elect Benhur Salimbangon earlier said that he will initiate a congressional inquiry amidst the alarming and looming power crisis in the Visayas specifically in Cebu.

Salimbangon said that as soon as the 15th Congress will convene this June, he will immediately file a resolution for the said purpose. —/NLQ(FREEMAN NEWS)