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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
DESPITE the rising summer heat and soaring price
of fuel in the international market, Metro Manila and the rest of
Luzon will have adequate power supply during the Holy Week break,
the National Power Corp. (Napocor) said.
Data from the state-owned power generating
company’s Power Economics Department showed that the entire Luzon
grid will have an available supply of more than 6,000 megawatts per
day from March 20 to March 23.
However, the country’s power situation in the
coming weeks may not be as rosy as the price of fuel for power
plants continues to increase in the international market.
In light of this, Cyril del Callar, Napocor
president, in his keynote speech during the recently concluded 2008
Napocor Management Conference, put it upon the company to secure the
country’s power supply, given the rising prices of oil and natural
gas, and the tight supply of coal even in coal-producing countries.
Although countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and
China have been forced to shut down some of their coal plants due to
the inadequate supply of coal, he said “there should be no
brownouts at all in 2008, especially in Luzon and Mindanao.”
Possible increase in electricity rates
Lasse Holopainen, president of the Philippine
Electricity Market Corp., which operates the Wholesale Electricity
Spot Market, however, warned that tightness in global coal supply
could negatively impact electricity prices in the next few months as
“we may be forced to use oil-based power plants,” which are more
expensive.
In Napocor’s overall power generation mix,
coal-fired power plants currently account for about 30 percent of
generated power while oil-based plants account for about 2 percent.
In April last year, Napocor, which sources the
fuel supply for the country’s coal plants, suffered several failed
biddings and the shortage of fuel supply in light of strong demand
and the unavailability of cheap running hydro plants.
Napocor, in a statement, said that for the
coming Holy Week, power supply will be more than enough to meet the
peak demand in the grid, which has been projected at 4,200 megawatts
on March 20; 4,000 megawatts on March 21; 4,800 megawatts on March
22; and 5,000 megawatts on March 23.
It added that given this supply-demand scenario,
power reserves are seen to reach 1,955 megawatts on March 20; 2,167
megawatts on March 21; 1,367 megawatts on March 22; and 1,167
megawatts on March 23.
“Power reserves will be highest on Good
Friday, as electricity demand has historically been lowest on this
particular day of the year,” the statement said.
This is because most power-intensive industries
cut down on their working hours or altogether stop their operations
in observance of the holiday.
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