MANILA, Philippines - Even as energy officials disputed allegations the power-supply shortfall, especially in Mindanao, is contrived for various reasons, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has moved to finalize  plans to deal with possible outages in the May polls.

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said on Tuesday a meeting was set this week to lay down solutions to the power crisis happening in Mindanao, the traditional field of election cheats, which is suffering five to 12 hours of brownouts daily.

The National Power Corp. (Napocor) had suggested the Comelec hold manual elections in Mindanao, but Larrazabal said that is not acceptable. “[The lack of power] is not reason enough to hold manual elections [there].”

Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes on Tuesday presented to President Arroyo and the Cabinet several “options” to ease the power crisis in Mindanao without legislative intervention, such as transferring available power barges to Mindanao, leasing modular generator sets (gensets), and rescheduling operations of industrial users to off-peak hours. The Executive is looking at a “short-term solution  that will not be too expensive and that will be feasible” and proposals “which require the importation of equipment” have been ruled out for lack of time, said Press Secretary Crispulo Icban Jr.

Executive Secretary Leandro Mendoza told reporters the President directed a “select group” of Cabinet officials to study the legal and funding aspects of the options in consultation with private-sector representatives, and submit a report this week.

In ruling out manual polls in blackout-ridden Mindanao, Comelec’s Larrazabal said the 82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) units from Smartmatic and Total Information Management (Smartmatic-TIM) which will be deployed for the May 10 polls have external batteries that can last up to 16 hours; canvassing centers will also be equipped with generators.

The Mindanao grid has a generation deficiency of 700 megaWatts (mW) resulting in the implementation of manual load dropping by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the result, according to officials, of the drying up of water reservoirs due to the El Niño dry spell forcing hydro plants, which account for half of the South’s power supply, to shut down.

Some quarters, including certain business groups in Mindanao, however, sense something rotten, noting that Department of Energy (DOE) data show the Mindanao grid is supposed to have stable power supply up to 2014. DOE projections until late last year also had indicated that energy shortfalls would start to kick in only in 2011 and 2012 in some areas—not as soon as 2010. Some quarters suspect the “artificial crisis” is meant to make the public so desperate as to embrace either the nuclear-energy option, or hastily sealed contracts with independent power producers, as what happened during the Ramos era.

Since last month, the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao grids have been troubled by rotating brownouts.

Larrazabal said that based on their initial discussions with distribution and generation firms, the brownouts could be resolved, but declined to reveal how.

Likewise, Larrazabal said the Comelec en banc had directed its regional directors to submit the precinct maps to the "power companies“so that they know which towns need power on election day.”

In January, the Comelec had deputized the DOE and the Napocor as the agencies that must ensure continued supply of power during elections, after which the DOE through Napocor submitted a contingency plan to prevent power-supply interruptions during the voting, counting  and canvassing.

The DOE has said in the Philippine Energy Plan 2005-2014 that the Mindanao grid was projected to have 2,450 mW in installed capacity while peak demand was projected to reach 1,784 mW this year.

It even showed the Mindanao grid was projected to have an installed capacity of 2,500 mW, 2,600 mW, 2,650 mW, and 2,800 mW in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively. Peak demand in the Mindanao grid, on the other hand, was projected to reach 1,883 mW, 2,001 mW 2,124 mW and 2,256 mW in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively.

The department denied suspicions the outages were to accustom the public to such outages in preparation for cheating or disruptions on May 10. “The shortfall in power supply in the Mindanao grid is not artificial, but is due to several factors,” stressed Dennis Gana, corporate communications head of Napocor. He insisted the Mindanao power-supply shortfall “is due to low water elevation levels due to the dry spell brought about by the El Niño phenomenon.”

Gana added the nonoperation of thermal or oil-fired power plants due to scheduled maintenance shutdowns also worsened the supply situation in the Mindanao grid.

The NGCP said the Mindanao grid has limited available capacities from Napocor’s hydroelectric power plants, most of which have water reservoirs that are drying up due to El Niño.

As of Tuesday, the NGCP said the Mindanao grid had a power supply deficiency of as much 700 mW. The available capacity in Mindanao stood at 772 mW while the projected peak demand reached 1,472 mW.

In Luzon, the NGCP said customers can expect uninterrupted power service owing to ample reserves that stood at 369 mW.

The Visayas grid, according to the NGCP, recorded a power shortfall of 43 mW as its available capacity stood at 1,139 mW and peak demand reached 1,182 mW due to the emergency shutdown of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. generation plant.

Reyes presents ‘options’ for Mindanao

Meanwhile, the options presented by Energy Secretary Reyes on Tuesday will be reviewed by a Cabinet group that includes Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, Justice Secretary Alberto Agra, Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales and Mindanao Development Authority Chair Jesus Dureza

The options, which apply only to Mindanao, include capacity sharing or providing excess capacity to those in need, transferring an available power barge from Luzon to Mindanao which could provide 200 megawatts, a government lease of modular gensets, and rescheduling the operations of industrial users to the period from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. so that they do not have to compete with other users during peak hours.

Dureza said another “immediate action plan” is “the running of embedded generators  [or standby generators owned by malls, hotels, etc.].”

Press Secretary Icban said the government wants a “short-term solution that will not be too expensive and that will be feasible.” Asked how the government can persuade industrial users to reschedule their operations, Icban said they may have to choose between rescheduling their operations or “stop operations” because of the lack of power supply if the option is not even considered.

“It is a choice they can make,” he said.

Mendoza said the Cabinet also discussed the possible lease or rental of gensets, given the interpretation that Section 71 of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) may apply only to the construction of additional generating capacity and not on leased or rented facilities, but stressed that it has not been approved yet.

Mendoza said that “everyone agrees” that steps should be immediately undertaken to address the power crisis in Mindanao but there are important considerations such as cost and timing, since the El Niño is supposed to last until June, and the rains begin in July, which would refill the dams in Mindanao and power its hydroelectric plants.

“One consideration here is the cost of power when we do the leasing....It might jump to [a level] which is not affordable,” he said.

For funding, Mendoza said the government is looking at a “financing window” through the Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines.

To underscore the severity of the problem and the urgent need to resolve it, Dureza said in a text message to reporters that “Mindanao is facing a calamity situation due to an acute and worsening power shortage,” but added that “the government is firmly resolved to address it decisively.”

He added, “A power deficiency of 700 mW is devastating to the economy, and the water levels in the Agus and Pulangi hydroelectric plants have reached critical levels. Longer brownouts are now being experienced throughout the island region.” This could worsen as the El Niño is still seen to last till June.

Dureza said the Mindanao Business Council and the Mindanao Power Plant Alliance, a coalition of power providers and cooperatives, “is proposing to mount an immediate power-generating project” which he did not elaborate on.

GFI loans for electric co-ops

Senate energy committee chairman Gregorio Honasan suggests that Napocor acquire additional generating capacity without need for any presidential declaration.

Honasan, concurrent cochairman of the Congressional Power Commission, said the Energy Regulatory Commission can move on its own as a quasi-judicial body to allow all distribution utilities and electric cooperatives in Mindanao to run their oil-based plants and lease-purchase more generator sets if needed.

But Honasan added that “any additional costs ought not to burden electricity consumers.”

“It is time to make our provinces independent and self-reliant,” he said, explaining that “empowering our local communities, through their electric cooperatives, will result in more responsive, accountable, secure and proximate energy source with the officers of the electric co-ops directly answerable to their members.”

He said government financial institutions (GFIs) can provide concessional loans to the National Electrification Authority (NEA) which will in turn loan funds to local electric co-ops to purchase power plants, barges or generators.

“The NEA is in the best position to finance the cooperatives as this is NEA’s mandate. There should be no take-or-pay contracts,” Honasan said.

He explained that since this solution is intended to address the crisis in Mindanao, the whole grid must also pay for the additional power. “The abnormal increase in power rates for the next two months can be paid in installment over the next 24 months in time for the next possible El Niño. These mechanisms will soften the impact of the rate increase,” Honasan said.

The same concessional  loans can be extended by GFIs to finance the fuel requirements of generating companies and local electric co-ops to enable them to pass on the benefits of long-term payments to consumers. “An alternative is for the government to purchase the fuel itself and be paid back in installments,” he added.   (S. Fabunan, P.A. Isla, M. Gonzales, B. Fernandez)