Imagination means savings Meralco PowerGen president Rogelio Singson counts the many ways to save energy amid a power deficiency as summer season begins. ROY PELOVELLO
The energy shortfall is expected to last until June mainly as a result of increased electricity consumption and a dry spell from the El Niño phenomenon, a top official of power distributor Meralco said.
Meralco unit PowerGen president and chief executive officer Rogelio Singson on Thursday’s Straight Talk with Daily Tribune described the upsurge in energy demand and the El Niño episode as a “double whammy” on the power sector.
“I did voice my concern with some of my friends from the Department (of Energy). I am familiar with the El Niño phenomenon because I came from the water sector… I used to be president of Maynilad, so that is what we try to anticipate, that you have enough in your dam to be able to supply Maynilad and Manila Water,” Singson said.
“So, you need to be able to extend (water reserves) and maybe reduce the use for hydro, since electricity generation and water supply come from the same source. You stretch it so that you don’t have people who are waterless while balancing the situation so that there will be no brownout,” he added.
Data from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) showed from 26 April to 21 June, the electricity generation capacity reserves will fall short of the requirement to assure a reliable flow of electricity.
The table showed that in the week of 16 April to 2 May, the available capacity of power plants will reach 12,654 megawatts against a forecast system load of 11,220 MW. The demand is projected to peak at 11,403 MW in the week of 17 to 23 May versus an available supply of 12,804 megawatts.
As of midweek, Singson said from 2,700 MW to 3,000 MW generating capacity have been taken out of the Luzon grid either through suspension of operations or reduced output.
The 316-MW GNPower plant unit 2 in Mariveles, Bataan jointly owned by the Ayala and Aboitiz groups also suffered an outage on Thursday.
Other idle generating facilities were the 150 MW Malaya thermal power plant, 300 MW Calaca coal-fired facility, 150 MW from a unit of South Luzon Power Generation Corp., 150 MW from Unit 1 of the South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp and 150 MW unit 2 of San Miguel power group.
Three generating plants were also de-rated which are the Masinloc unit 1 plant which was down to 300 MW from 315 MW, a Masinloc unit which has its capacity reduced to 280 MW from 344 MW and the Pagbilao plant that was reduced to a 315 MW output from 420 MW.
ILP ready to go
Meralco said it had informed huge power users under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) for possible activation of the scheme if the situation becomes critical, such as in a sudden breakdown of a power plant.
Singson said Meralco has contingency programs to prevent brownouts from hitting the Luzon grid but it may mean higher electricity bills.
The scheme allows big private power users to source electricity from their generators and are then compensated by government.
“Meralco (under a critical power supply situation) has no choice but to buy from the spot market. And so, the tendency (of spot market pricing) is that when several plants are down, spot market (prices) go up and the tendency, in the summer months, the prices are higher at the spot market,” Singson said.
He added the recurring problem on power supply during the dry season would have been addressed through a combination of storage and generation technologies.
“I am relatively new in the sector. In other countries, they use pump storage, which is similar to the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) hydroelectric power plant but they rely on nuclear power. So, in other countries, you have huge pump-storage capacities which are ideal for renewables,” he said.
“In pump storage, you will have alternate power during off-peak hours to pump water into a reservoir. During peak hours, the hydroelectric turbines are used, then the cycle is repeated,” Singson added.
“The thing there is it works very well if your baseload is nuclear, since such a power source runs for 24 hours. So, during peak hours, you are covered and on off-peak periods, demand drops so can use excess electricity from a nuclear plant. That’s why that survives very well,” he said.
Singson added Japan has a lot of pump storage capacities. “In the US, when the plant is nuclear-based, they use the excess power at night to pump water up,” he said.
In the country’s case where there is no nuclear plant, there is little difference between peak and off-peak, so the effect is that such a scheme will result in cost-to-pump water that is higher than revenues from the use of hydroelectric plant.
Social cost a hurdle
Singson said the problem with using nuclear power in the country is the social cost.
“It it is hard to sell coal to be widely accepted, more so with nuclear. People will say nuclear is the safest long-term and the cheapest, but of course, people will always argue, they’d go for renewables anytime over nuclear because of the Fukushima experience, Chernobyl. But if you look into a longer time horizon, those accidents are rare,” he added.
“I would say let’s look at the nuclear option,” he said.
Right now, Singson added nuclear power is not in Meralco PowerGen’s planning horizon. “But it is the least costly and, as I said, it offers huge excess capacity during the night that can be used to pump water for use during the peak hours of electricity use,” he said.
“In our (tropical) region, water is abundant but during dry season, severe water shortage results. If there’s a lot of rains, the streets are flooded. As I have said several times, we have not learned and we have to suffer that ritual every year,” he added.
Solution from impounding
Singson said the focus now at Meralco PowerGen is renewable sources.
“Frankly, I am a strong advocate of the environment. I believe in climate change and I was hoping that we could have done more in the area of water. As I said, look at the weather cycle. During the wet season, floods come. During dry season, there is no water to drink and for irrigation. Why?” he said.
He added the solution is in impounding water.
“You save water during severe rains, then release it after. I was advocating, when I was in government, for local government units to pass an ordinance for that instead of waiting for the national government to craft a policy,” he said.
“It merely involves the passing of an ordinance. Look at Cavite which used to be mostly farmlands which absorb water during rains. The water all goes to Bacoor River. Then, the fields were replaced with subdivisions which have drainage that all pours into Bacoor River,” he said.
“The result, expectedly, was floods since the drainage on the streets is only designed to absorb water from roads. It was not designed for subdivisions,” he added.
“So, the solution is a water impounding system — an ordinance that says all subdivisions, major commercial establishments should be prohibited from spilling their water into drainages. They should have their own impounding system,” he said.
“That’s what we did in Fort Bonifacio. Burgos Circle impounds and regulates the water and this is released based on the capacity of the water creek. The water is absorbed during rains preventing EDSA and Kalayaan from being flooded. So, now there are no complaints,” Singson said.
Source: https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2019/03/09/double-whammy-poses-power-woes/