Traders renew plea for gov’t to prepare for power crisis

The Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) has again urged the government to be more aggressive in implementing measures to avert a looming power shortage of as much as 500 megawatts. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) has again urged the government to be more aggressive in implementing measures to avert a looming power shortage of as much as 500 megawatts.

“A power supply shortage of about 300 to 500 megawatts by the summer of 2015 is imminent. This shortage will be further compounded by the maintenance shutdown of the Camago-Malampaya gas field which will reduce the Ilijan power plant’s capacity from 1,200 megawatts to 450 megawatts,” the MAP warned in a position paper it issued Wednesday.

Critical measures

The business group reiterated the need for the government to aggressively carry out all necessary critical measures, including, among other things, demand-side management programs, the voluntary interruptible load program (ILP) and lifting the secondary price cap in the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM).

The ILP, in particular, is also being pushed by other business groups as this could serve as an immediate stop-gap measure to alleviate a power supply shortfall.

Power customers

Power customers—particularly the big industrial and commercial ones—with the ability to produce electricity with their own generators are among those qualified to be part of the ILP.

Under this program, participating customers would allow distribution utilities to cut off or reduce the power supplied them, particularly during peak periods of the day or during emergency situations. During these hours, “de-loaded” customers would use their own generators.

In turn, these customers would be compensated for the higher costs they incur when they run their generators.

Price cap

The MAP, meanwhile, urged the Energy Regulatory Commission to lift the secondary price cap in the WESM, which “deters the entry of new and existing peaking plants by effectively disallowing them from recovering fuel costs.”

The MAP, however, warned against invoking Section 71 of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) to grant the government emergency powers to act on a power crisis.

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