The national government is set to start a loan scheme that will allow electric cooperatives in Mindanao to acquire their own modular generator sets to help offset the impact of the prolonged daily rotating brownouts.
Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla told participants of a
regional power forum in General Santos on Wednesday afternoon that President
Benigno Aquino III has approved the loan program as an alternative
solution to the long brownouts triggered by the worsening power
shortage in the Mindanao grid.
Petilla and Secretary Luwalhati Antonino, chair of the Mindanao
Development Authority (MinDA) met with the President in Malacanang
last Monday to discuss the Mindanao power crisis and set the
strategies to resolve the problem.
Petilla said the the DoE will provide the funds to the National
Electrification Administration (NEA) “which will then offer them to
the electric cooperatives by way of (soft) loans.”
Under the scheme, electric cooperatives may avail of the loan but
should only utilize them to purchase fuel-fired modular generator
sets, he said.
Petilla added the loan will be based on the need and capacity of the
generator units that will be acquired by the electric cooperative.
He said they will offer a grace period of two years for the loan
repayment and borrowers will only be required to pay for the interest
during the period.
After the two-year grace period, borrowers will be required to pay for
the interest and the loan principal, he said.
“But they will have the option to waive their loan repayments by
returning the generator units to NEA after two years,” Petilla
explained.
He said the projected monthly interest payment for the loan may reach
around P150,000 per megawatt (MW) of the acquired generator sets.
Based on their estimates, he said consumers will have to pay an
additional P3 per kilowatt-hour for eight hours of average daily use
of the generator sets.
Petilla said DoE is presently talking with five suppliers of modular
generator sets for the possible link-up with the electric
cooperatives.
Aside from the NEA loan, electric cooperatives have an option to
directly deal with the suppliers through direct purchase or a lease
agreement, he said.
Citing their initial discussions with executives of Monark Equipment
Corp., the sole authorized dealer of Caterpillar generators in the
country, Petilla said the monthly lease or rental fee may reach P1.4
million per MW of the generator set.
Petilla clarified that the loan is scheme is just an additional option
for the crisis-hit electric cooperatives in Mindanao.
He said they will discuss the specific details of the loan scheme with
officials and representatives of Mindanao electric cooperatives in a
meeting in Manila on Monday.
“It will still be the choice of the cooperatives (whether to avail of
the loan or not). We will not push for this unless they’re willing to
do it,” he said.
Distribution utility South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative, which
serves this city and parts of Sarangani and South Cotabato provinces,
had signified willingness to acquire modular generator sets to ease
the long daily rotating brownouts in the area.
The electric cooperative is presently implementing two sets of daily
rotating brownouts lasting seven hours each or a total of 14 hours
daily due to the power shortage, which was mainly attributed to the
declining generation capacity of the National Power Corporation’s
(NPC) hydroelectric plants in Bukidnon and Lanao del Norte.
Socoteco II’s technical services department noted that the area’s
power deficit has so far dropped to 33 MW from last week’s 42 MW due
to increased generation capacity of the NPC’s hydroelectric plants.
From 40 MW last week, it said the NPC and the National Grid
Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) increased the area’s power
allocation to 49 MW because of the improved situation.
Aboitiz-owned Therma Marine Inc. augments the area’s power supplies by
30 MW based on a power sales agreement that it earlier signed with
Socoteco II. [Allen V. Estabillo/MindaNews]
