BROWNOUT. Employees and customers go outside their offices due to the rotational brownout implemented by the Davao Light and Power Co. (Ace R.Morandante/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY — The Davao Light and Power Company is short of 105 megawatts or an equivalent of five hours of power interruption because of the ongoing drought.
DLPC Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Arturo Milan, said “our average supply is 190 MW, while the demand is 340 MW.”
“For every 20 MW that is equivalent to one hour. So this is where our five-hour power interruption is coming from,” he said.
DLPC said the five-hour power interruption will last until April 20.
Milan said based on the record from the National Grid and Power Corporation, the supply or systems capacity of the Mindanao grid is at 1,343 megawatts, but the demand is 1,405 MW as of Monday, April 11.
“In spite of the fact that we have a 300 MW coal plant of Aboitiz Power, the power reserve in the Mindanao grid remains negative,” Milan said.
In a power point presentation during Monday’s Kapehan sa Dabaw, Millan showed that although the capacity of hydro sources is 982 MW, the production is only 108 MW.
“There is a big reduction in the supply of power from hydroelectric sources,” he said, with Agus 1 and Agus 2 generating zero megawatts.
The data presented by DLPC Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Arturo Milan shows a big reduction on the energy capacity of the hydro power plants. (Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)
On April 6, DLPC implemented up to four hours rotating outages because of the emergency shutdown of one of the units of the Therma South Inc. coal-fired power plant. The remaining unit supplies the DLPC with 50 MW, which is 50 MW short of the 100 MW contracted supply.
Milan said the Hedcor Sibulan hydro power plant has a contracted supply of 49 MW to DLPC, but only supplies an average of 22 MW.
He said the Hedcor plant in Talomo has a contracted supply of 4 MW, but only supplies 3 MW.
Milan said the additional one-hour power interruption will be implemented between 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm.
He added that if the TSI unit is back online, the brownout will only be a maximum of three hours.
Meanwhile, based on Milan’s presentation 12 cities and towns in Mindanao will experience power interruptions including: Cagayan de Oro City with three hours; Dipolog City with two hours; Zamboanga City with two-three hours; Midsayap with three to four hours; Cotabato City with four hours; Tacurong with 1.5 hours; Koronadal City with two hours; General Santos City with one hour; Kidapawan City with 1.5-2.5 hours; Mati City with two to three hours; and Tagum City with two to 2.5 hours.
Three cities in Mindanao, namely, Butuan City, Iligan City and Digos City will have no power interruption.
‘No more power interruptions by May, if…’
Milan said he is hopeful that the power situation in Mindanao will normalize by the end of April this year if all the plants in the island will not malfunction and if the country will start to have rains citing the forecast from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).
Milan said they have contracted 50 megawatts from the Southern Philippines Power Corporation (SPPC), which will be available on May 1.
In addition, Milan said the National Power Corporation will also be increasing their production starting May 5 until May 12.
“This is in preparation before and after the elections,” said Milan.
“We will not have brownouts in May hoping that the rain will also start,” said Milan. He said the rains experienced now are not yet enough. (With a report from Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)
