by Alex Roldan
The most troublesome crisis faced by the Philippine nation these days is the shortage in supply of electricity. The country has been facing this dilemma years back, but till now, no proper solution has been made to this problem neither any planning has come into existence since the symptoms of this short supply of electricity.
Rotating blackouts or technically known as load shedding, has always been a staple of daily life for many Filipinos, whenever there is a long dry spell. In the last couple of years, this problem has already been identified, yet it seems that we stayed into our comfort zones until the situation starts to affect our lives.
This appears insurmountable in the near or even long-term future, unless proper understanding and correct implementation is undertaken in priority basis.
Notwithstanding the systemic issues such as failure to build new dams and other power sources, the Government’s inability to approximate the power requirement to be added to the grid during the 9 years of its rule, clearly showed that the electricity crisis is a result of bad management and lack of foresight.
As of 2006, the Philippine’s total installed capacity was approximately 2,257 MW, where 68 percent is generated from natural gas, fuel oil and coal, followed by hydropower (15%) and other sources 17%. (GENI, 2006) In February 2007, the Philippine National Oil Company- Energy Development Corporation’s first merchant power plant (49.37 MW) started its commercial operations providing additional power capacity for the Visayas grid.
Though that the Nasulo Geothermal Power Project in Palinpinon has started to operate last year, the Mindanao III in Mt. Apo, North Cotabato is expected to be operational only in 2011.Moreover, the government has already identified 70 hydropower projects with a potential capacity of 2,603.5 MW. Currently there are 14 mini-hydropower projects with completed feasibility studies, expected to provide an additional 237.56 MW to existing capacity.
Taking advantage of the new sources of electricity particularly the renewable energy in the country is agonizingly slow. They knew from the start that it needs 3 to 5 years to build a medium sized plant and another one to 2 years before it become fully operational, therefore most the identified power sources are still either under construction or in the table waiting to be acted upon. The fossil fuel-based plants are easier and much faster to build, but with the sky-high prices of oil, it is simply unbearable to the consumers. Indigenous fuels like coal, gas, or even nuclear will have to be developed and developed quickly.
We are now at the mercy of what short-term solution that the government to offer, such as sending power barges to areas that needs additional power. Business, the lifeline of the economy needs these but at heavy price to the business and their customers.
The foremost immediate action which can give some relief is the conservation of energy.
This brings us back to the question of the government’s energy development policy for this country. Years back we have been awash with extra power capacity. In fact this has been the complaint of many electric consumers who were burdened by the Ramos government’s contract with power companies who should be paid for powers that were never generated.
It was on the presumption that the country’s economy would surge and to keep pace with the need, power plants should be built immediately. Though the economy did not dramatically increase as projected, but even so, the need for electricity continues to grow. However, the effort to use new and indigenous sources of electric power decelerated.
The current power crisis is grossly due to very high oil prices where most of our electric plants depend, and the inefficiency of the government to make good of their promise in the Millennium Development Goal to make the country a leading producer of renewable energy.
The policy orientation of this country needs a drastic modification to make indigenous resources such as hydropower and thermal gas for energy production, should be the top priority. This is supposed to be our strength, and not on power plants that guzzles on expensive fuels. However, our policy should be clear against willful destruction of our remaining watersheds, and it should be done pronto.#
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