Davao City’s brownouts lesser due to DLPC’s good foresight — NGCP

The clock stops for both the private and government offices located along Quimpo Boulevard almost every day from 1 to 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Among the offices here are the Commission on Human Rights and the Philippine Information Agency. This is the regular brownout schedule for the said area as a result of the power rationing being experienced by Mindanao.
“The situation could be worse and would have extended to a six-hour brownout schedule everyday instead of just two hours had it not been for DLPC’s foresight,” said National Grid Corporation of the Philippines corporate executive for Mindanao Ed Calabio during a recent press conference held at the SM City Davao Entertainment Center.
Calabio said had the Davao Light and Power Company given up its Bajada plant, Davao City would be experiencing longer brownouts. He said there was a clamor to close down the Bajada plant before but DLPC did not give in to those demands, and this ultimately benefitted the Dabawenyos.
He also cited DLPC’s good foresight in contracting the Sibulan Hydro power plant as early as 2006 as another reason why Davao City has less power interruptions compared to other areas in the region. “These plants are keeping us alive at this time,” he said.
The Sibulan Hydro Power Project is a 45MW plant which is a recipient of a carbon credit accreditation by the Det Norske Veritas Certification AS, a carbon credit accreditation facility in Norway. It was given the carbon credit accreditation considering that the plant will effectively reduce 95,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to TCO2e compared to a fossil fuel based plant. The Sibulan plant had been operating only on 24MW, but will be on full operation this month (March).
Thank to the Kyoto Protocol, renewable energy projects like the hydro power plant which do not increase the environment’s carbon dioxide content, companies like Aboitiz can sell the carbon credits they get to the carbon credit market and get additional income from it.
Calabio also made mention of the Tamugan-Suawan Hydro Electric Project which is expected to produce 30MW of power, The project has been delayed because of the opposition coming not only from the Davao City Water District but also from some other sectors.
Worsening power crisis
As of last Thursday, however, DLPC had imposed a two-hour rotating brownout from the previous one-hour power outage. However, consumers admit that not all areas are experiencing the brownouts at all.
This is in fact a better scenario compared to the rest of Mindanao which are experiencing prolonged brownouts of up to 10 hours at any one time after a load curtailment on power companies and cooperatives was imposed by NGCP. Calabio said there is a method by which the curtailment is done scientifically which depends on a lot of factors, including the payment history and the requirements of a certain company or cooperative.
DLPC communications officer Ross Luga said NGCP has increased its load curtailment on DLPC as a result of the greatly-reduced generation capacity of Lake Lanao in Lanao del Sur and Pulangi River in Bukidnon hydro power plants. Calabio noted that the capability of the Agus hydro-electric power plant has been reduced by 80% while that of the Pulangi plant has been reduced by 90%. As of March 1, the elevation of Lake Lanao was down to 699.08 meters.  [Lovely A. Carillo]