Power Situation Getting Worse As Davao Light Increases Hours Of Rotating Brownouts

Davaoeños have to stretch their patience as Davao Light and Power Company increased to five hours (four hours during the day and one hour at night) the rotating power outages due to the continued reduction of power supply from the Mindanao grid.

Compared to other areas in Mindanao, Art Milan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Davao Light, admitted Davao City has the longest power outages because they could no longer address the big demand.

This situation is aggravated by the emergency shutdown of one of the units of the Therma South Inc. (TSI) coal-fired power plant, which Davao Light has a 50 MW contract.

Milan said Davao Light is short of 150 megawatts (MW) while Davao City’s current demand is 340MW. He explained that 20MW is equivalent to one hour. This situation will likely last until April 21.

Even if the TSI plant goes online, Milan said if the other power sources cannot deliver, Davao Light will still run on reduced supply capacity.

“I understand the emotions of the public. Pero unsa man among mahimo mao lang pud ang among pa apud apud (But what can we do that is the only thing that we can distribute,” Milan said.

In his presentation during Monday’s Kapehan sa Dabaw, Milkan said the latest reading of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) Mindanao has a systems capacity of 1,343MW while the current demand is 1,405 megawatts.

Milan said the capacity of hydro- electric sources is 982 megawatts, but its actual production is only 108 megawatts. He also cited the continued reduction of the water level at the Agus plants.

All other sources of Davao Light has reduced capacity such as the Hedcor and Sibulan hydro plants which could deliver 44MW at normal level but already reduced to 22MW. This is also true Talomo hydro.

Milan is however optimistic the power situation will improve towards the elections. He said the National Power Corporation (NPC)-PSALM has committed to increase capacity after May 1 in order to provide ample supply during the elections. (PNA) LAP/LILIAN C. MELLEJOR/LDP