Low-batt nation

CTALK By Cito Beltran (The Philippine Star) Updated October 29, 2010

A former high-ranking government official is currently looking for a high capacity generator to power an ice plant. When asked why he was quoted as saying:

“I asked Meralco and they said they won’t be able to assure delivery of my power requirements in 2011”.

A former official of the NAPOCOR has admittedly swallowed his pride and is now buying a residential type generator to make sure his family won’t be living in the dark next year.

A respected business columnist has advised me to buy a generator because he is already having one installed in his house in anticipation of power fluctuations and blackouts come early 2011. This got my attention because he’s one of the few people in media who actually understands the business of power generation.

A businessman-engineer recently pointed out to me that while the Secretary of Energy insists there is ample means to supply power, his claims are based on the “RATED/Maximum” capacity of power plants. This means that the data or calculations being made is the “ideal” but unsustainable for extended use.

So the rated power is something we don’t really try to get because it would shorten the use of said thing. In effect the rated capacities of power plants in the country are only ideal on paper but not in reality.

I am told that in real terms, the power supply being generated is merely 2/3 or 75 percent of actual demand on average. But since supply determines consumption, consumers merely cut back. Just remember the times when Meralco or Napocor appealed to the public to reduce power consumption last summer and when the dams ran dry. 

But before I even go out and burn two months salary on a minuscule generator, I decided to do more research on the matter. I spoke to people from Mindanao, gathered the most recent data on power failure incident reports etc. just to be certain.

I discovered that like 95 million other Filipinos, I am clueless about the situation, I am depending on government officials who have greater faith and hope like medicine men calling upon rain for a good harvest, and if our luck runs out next year, we will be back in the dark ages.

If P-Noy does not take a pro-active move, he may end up recreating the same “dark ages” during his mother’s time when the country suffered severe power crisis up to the election of President Fidel Ramos.

The Cory people tried to solve the problem as well as they could but their solutions were largely stopgap or remedial because they did not have the money.

When FVR came in, they bit the bullet and allowed the construction of power plants that were expensive, first because beggars can’t be choosers and they also built plants with projected capacities for at least two administrations, namely the Ramos and the Estrada administration.

In effect the power generation program was good only until 2004. The only reason the power plants are still managing is because business and the economy did not grow as projected. First there was the Asian financial crisis in ’97-’98. Then the political coup against President Estrada, then the rock and roll administration of GMA that was capped by the global economic crisis in 2009.

In short all the bad politics and economics prevented the return of the “dark ages”. But now that we have a new administration that has started to attract the attention of investors as well as a bigger population since Cory’s time, there is a looming possibility that we can end up with a serious energy crisis.

When I asked an energy boss what the current power supply versus demand status is, he told me that we are at the same level we were between 1990 and 1998. If the shortage and crisis are not evident, it soon will be.

In Iloilo I am told of a situation where the Napocor is mandated to produce and sell affordable electricity. One morning the Napocor people woke up to find out that the PSALM had sold the power plant to the private sector, thereby taking away the very instrument that Napocor needs to produce electricity.

The reported solution is the PSALM has allegedly offered to buy electricity from the new owners at the government mandated price plus cost of fuel. The deal has practically insured that the new owner of the plant will have his return on investment in one year!

I make no judgments on PSALM transactions but experts from different administrations with different politics seem to agree that the power plants and facilities being privatized by PSALM are being sold at extremely cheap prices. WHY sell and WHY cheap?

It would be easy for the new administration to say that we are certain to get new investors and new players into the country, but let us not forget that while P-Noy attracts investors and businessmen, they will need power NOW, not in four years which would be the shortest time to build new power plants.

Even if the government were to farm out old plants like the Sucat plant that was mothballed, it would take three years to re-commission.

But that is not even half of the problem. there remains various laws concerning power generation that need to be changed for the better.

The Aquino administration will have their hands full in order to fix the power generation industry and the sooner they ask for help like I did, the sooner they will get a better picture.

That is where public-private partnership should start; learning from each other.