|
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Power offered at ‘lower’ rate to answer supply fluctuations
CEBU CITY -- Cebu needs more reliable power supply, as wide spread brownouts showed last week. In three years, the demand for power is projected to reach 700 megawatts, or double the current average demand.
Post your comments here on the Batasan blast
A Toledo City-based independent power producer (IPP) is offering electricity from its diesel-powered plant at a “break-even” rate as one immediate solution for supply fluctuations in the National Power Corp. (Napocor).
The same IPP is building next year a 246-megawatt thermal plant that will use clean coal technology. The plant will be ready by 2010, said Global Business Power Corp. project manager Edecio Satina.
According to the Philippine Electricity Market Corp., Cebu has a dependable capacity this year of 390 megawatts a day, while the average demand is 329 megawatts daily.
Since the average amount of power generated by plants in Cebu is only 131 megawatts, the province has to import the rest of the needed electricity from Leyte.
If power had not stabilized during the afternoon peak hours last Friday, Satina said Global would have supplied more to the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) by reactivating its 40-megawatt diesel plant.
Technical problems at the Tabango, Leyte cable terminal station and of the Cebu Thermal Power Plant (CTTP) 2 in the City of Naga, Cebu resulted in brownouts in 30 towns and five cities in Cebu last Friday.
The franchise areas of Cebu Electric Cooperative (Cebeco), which covers 28 towns and three cities, had no power for more than four hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon.
And there was no power also from Linao, Talisay City to San Fernando town for almost an hour.
The power outage happened a day after a blackout in the province.
Lightning struck an overhead transmission cable in the Malitbog-Tabango, Leyte area that was connected to the Leyte-Cebu submarine cables.
Last Friday, power from the Leyte-Cebu interconnection dropped by 80 megawatts, which caused rotating brownouts in the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid.
Veco also sources 35 megawatts from Global’s thermal plant, which has a capacity of 66 megawatts.
With a projected demand increase of eight percent, Veco plans to get 70 megawatts more from Global.
Aside from Veco, Global serves the Toledo Atlas mines, which is set to start full operation in the middle of next year, and the Balamban ship-building and ship-wrecking industry, which is expanding operations.
Atlas, in particular, uses just two megawatts but will need 33 to 45 megawatts by June 2008.
Satina said that although generating power through their diesel-powered plant is expensive since fuel costs are skyrocketing, they will offer power at a price comparable to prevailing rates.
The price of oil in the world markets has reached almost $100 per barrel.
While power from thermal plants is less expensive, generating it is slow compared with diesel plants.
Satina said that with the growing need for power in Cebu, 2008 to 2010 will be critical if no new power plants are built here.
While their 246-megawatt plant would significantly help Cebu, it will be ready in three years yet.
“In the interim, it is unclear where Cebu will get additional power,” Satina said.
He said they are refurbishing their thermal plant to increase output by 11 megawatts by March next year.
Global supplies power to the Cebeco 3, which serves the west coast area. (RHM of Sun.Star Cebu)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos. (November 18, 2007 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
|
|
[return to top]
[home]
|
|
Arroyo, de Venecia together in Singapore for Asean summit