By Juzel L. Danganan
MANILA, July 1 (PNA) – Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperatives Inc. (OMECO) expects power supply to stabilize by October 2015, with the National Power Corp. (Napocor) targeting to normalize the operations of its Power Barge 106.
”The Department of Energy (DOE) committed to make Napocor’s supply reliable with enough reserve, while waiting for Emerging Power Inc’s (EPI’s) 20 Megawatts (MWs),” OMECO General Manager Alfred Dantis told PNA in a text message Wednesday.
Dantis said the firm guarantee of DOE Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla helped assure that Napocor would commit itself to the planned solutions.
For its temporary solution, the DOE noted Power Barge 106 will return to operations by October 2015 starting with a capacity of 2.5 MW, increasing by another 2.5 MW by Nov and an additional 2.5 MW by February 2016. It was under repair due to the crankshaft damage of Unit 3.
For the long-term solution, Dantis said NPC would finish Mindoro’s transmission loop, making it reliable and efficient. It targets to be completed by 2017, matching EPI’s commercial operations target.
In a presentation delivered in Mindoro, the DOE said it expects another 21.5-MW bunker-diesel power plant to start commercial operations by 2017.
For the last week of June, according to the presentation, OMECO had a high demand of 15.59 MW, while having a dependable capacity of 20 MW.
Dantis explained some generators had not run, namely Island Power Corp. (IPC), which was excluded for the October 2015 forecast.
By that time, the DOE said power supply would stabilize at 22.50 MW, while power demand was expected to increase a little at 15.61-MW.
For the distribution utility’s part, the general manager committed its substation will be completed by July 2016, which is proposed to avert outages from transmission problems that may be brought by extreme weather systems.
But, Dantis stressed its current Pagasa substation could still accommodate the power demand until 2020.
Currently, OMECO has a customer count of 70,583 households, 70.58 percent from the total 99,664 potential connections.
It currently pays for power at Php 10.82 per kilowatthour (kWh), compared to the average Php 10.23 per kWh.
The Napocor has subsidized two diesel generator sets in the area, along with Power Barge 106 and other rental generator sets, according to the DOE.
Including the Napocor substations, the government office have subsidized Php 764.91 million in 2014, higher than 2013’s Php 681.26 million. (PNA)