IMEM still uncertain

By ARMANDO B. FENEQUITO JR.
With some provisions unfixed, the resumption of Interim Mindanao Electricity Market (IMEM) is still hanging on the air.
Department of Energy (DOE) Electric Power Industry Management Bureau assistant director Irma Exconde told Edge Davao that the IMEM has still to settle some provisions especially on the contracts for supplies.
Exconde said that there are some electric cooperatives who contracted with IMEM but later on they questioned the pricing of the private plants participated.
She said the problem prompted the agency to suspend the electricity spot market since the power plants cannot give justify the cost to some utilities and cooperatives.
Last year, the House Committee on Energy recommended the suspension of the electricity spot trading in Mindanao following objections from power distributors and consumers.
The committee also directed all power producers including owners of small generating facilities to connect to the Mindanao grid to help stave off a looming power crisis in Mindanao.
Meanwhile, Exconde said that there some places that will experience rotational power outage due to the onset of the summer season.
She said that during the hot season, there is a possibility of insufficiency of water supply in the hydropower plants in Mindanao.
Exconde said that the places who will be affected on the rotational outage are those under electric utilities and cooperatives who have not contracted an augmentation supply from the private plants.
She said that among the places affected are the provinces from Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) since they are very much dependent on the government-owned hydro plants in Mindanao.
Exconde however, said that with the upcoming operation of Therma South Inc., coal-fired power plants of Aboitiz Power, it will somehow ease the low power supply in Mindanao.