WHY Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) President Arnel Lapore thinks of the 150-megawatt coal-fired power plant of Panay Energy Development Corporation as a boon in terms of competition of rates in the market as well as in sustainability of supply is beyond me.
For one thing, this is the era of climate change, last I heard. The world is cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions.
For another, Negros Island is awash with excess solar power. Did Ceneco invite the Negrense solar plants to bid? Where are solar power suppliers Helios, Sacasol in the bidding?
Lapore argued that existing contracts with suppliers such as Kepco and Green Core that supply Ceneco’s base load capacity of 70 megawatts, will expire in 2021.
Well, fine. Admittedly, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is unable to absorb excess solar for now. But it won’t be forever.
Because the oversupply situation arising over development of solar power plants in Negros Island will be solved once the NGCP completes an interconnection project in the Visayas region in 2019.
That means that by 2019, the NGCP can provide power supply to address problems of frequent power outages. Two years ahead when Ceneco’s contracts with coal-powered suppliers expire.
Coal is better than solar in a tropical country? Dr. James Hansen, director of Nasa’s Goddard Space Institute, has recommended that no further coal plants be built that do not capture their carbon dioxide emissions, and has further recommended that all coal emissions be phased out by 2025 in the developed world and by 2030 in the developing world.
Lapore, it seems, is bent on extending the life of the Iloilo coal-powered plant in the next decade by providing a market to an island experiencing a power glut.
Supply from the solar plant is big, but when clouds cover the sun then its supply fluctuates and causes flickering, disruptions and worse, destruction of household appliances.
True. And that’s exactly what fluctuations from coal-powered plants are doing with our household appliances. It’s surprising that he failed to mention this. Why blame solar alone?
And oh, I’m writing this column in an internet café. Ceneco’s coal-based power generation has failed me over and over. ‘Nuff said.
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(bqsanc@yahoo.com)