Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes last night said Negros and Panay are faced with a serious power shortage that must be solved by the private sector’s building new power plants with the support of various stakeholders.

Cebu, Negros and Panay will need a total of 261 MW until 2010 to avert a power supply shortage, or 159MW for Negros, 88 MW for Panay and 14 MW for Cebu, said Reyes at a briefing on the power supply situation in Western Visayas at Nature’s Village Resort Talisay City.

That is why the leaders and stakeholders of Negros and Panay must actively support and encourage private sector investment in power plants in these areas, said Reyes, who was accompanied by National Transmission Corp. president Arthur Aguilar and National Power Corp. president Cyril Del Callar.

Sugar mills can also retrofit high pressure boilers for co-generation of electricity to help fill the 159 MW gap in Negros, he said.

While the current generation capacity is not enough to meet the increased demand no additional plants are being constructed by government, Reyes said.

This is because the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) no longer allows the NPC to put up new plants or incur new obligations with independent power producers, Reyes also said.

Therefore, he added, new generating plants must be built by the private sector.

He stressed that the environmental review of prospective power plants should be done according to Philippine laws within a reasonable period of time.

The Energy Regulatory Commission should also approve justifiable and commercially viable power rates to encourage private investments in power plants in Negros and Panay, he said.

Meanwhile, to partially mitigate the shortage the loading of TransCo’s Leyte Cebu submarine cables has been increased from 360 MW to 370 MW, he said.

Other ongoing measures are the second Cebu-Negros submarine cable targeted for completion in August  with a capacity to transmit 80 MW to 160 MW, reduction of demand through the voluntary ‘interruptible load’  program, and installation of “capacitor banks” in Negros and Panay by TransCo to mitigate low voltage conditions for completion by July 2009, he said.

Also ongoing is the Northern Panay backbone transmission project to allow higher power transmission to northern Panay, he said.

The NPC will also lease at least 30MW diesel generator modular sets in Panay subject to ERC approval of appropriate rates, he added.

Also ongoing is development of additional 20 MW at the Nasulo Geothermal Power Plant in southern Negros for completion in 2011,  and 20 MW at the Dauin Geothermal Power Plant in southern Negros for completion in 2013; and the rehabilitation and development of the steam field of the North Negros Geothermal Power Plant in Bago City, Reyes said.

Other proposed solutions to the power shortage are the NPC rehabilitation of power barges and Panay diesel units to increase dependable capacity of Panay, Reyes said.

Reyes pointed out in his power point briefer that environmental concerns and the “not in my own backyard mentality” prevented power projects that could have solved the current power shortage. Cited were the proposed coal plants in Pulupandan (100MW) and in Panay (200 MW) that had been opposed.

The Responsible Ilonggos for Sustainable Energy in a press statement yesterday, however, asked why the Department of Energy is providing Ilonggos with highly questionable data.

“There are huge discrepancies in the DoE data that are statistically unacceptable,” Ted Ong of the Freedom from Debt Coalition said.

In the DoE presentation, import capacity from Leyte is 390 MW in the CNP Power Supply Interdependence but only 274 in the Supply-Demand Outlook Cebu-Negros-Panay Grid, the press release pointed out.

Romana de los Reyes, spokesperson for the Visayas for Renewable Energy, said the DoE secretary only presented figures on the additional power that is needed but it cannot be assessed whether it is correct because no data was presented on available capacities and peak demand forecasts.

“So they just expect the people of Negros to accept whatever they say,” she said.

The secretary had refused to answer questions from the media and did not hold the scheduled press conference last night.*CPG

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