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While all feasible contingency measures are being hammered out, the Department of Energy (DOE) cannot give full commitment that this year’s May 9 elections will not be spared from brownouts or power service interruptions.

Nevertheless, Energy Senior Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella stated that in instances that there will be power outages, distribution utilities (DUs) and electric cooperatives (ECs) have agreed to prioritize electricity service in polling areas.

“We have to prioritize certain areas — because when we have issues on supply, we have to identify where the canvassing centers are; where the polling centers are, so those are the power lines that will be protected — that they shall not be included in the rotational outages – that’s the arrangement we have with the distribution utilities,” he stressed.

When asked further on the energy department’s assurance that the election process will not be adversely affected by electricity service cut-off, Fuentebella reiterated “That’s what we are trying to address…so our partnership with Comelec (Commission on Elections) not only addresses security concerns; but also the deployment of linemen in certain areas.”

The undersecretary added “The assurance is: everyone is onboard; not only the energy family but the other agencies as well; and we are closely coordinating with Comelec how they have organized themselves as well as with the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and the PNP (Philippine National Police) for their tripartite arrangement.”

Fuentebella pointed out “aside from being confident, we have to be prepared with any contingency, that is why the DOE and the entire Energy Task Force Election members are working together.”

Director Mario Marasigan of the DOE’s Electric Power Industry Management Bureau, indicated that apart from the contingency plans with the DUs, there had also been discussion with the generation companies (GenCos) to, as much as possible, prevent the recurring forced outages in their electric generating units.

Power generation firms, he said, have committed “to ensure that their optimum capacity will be available anytime.”

Marasigan explained that some power firms would, at times, need minor maintenance programs in their generating units, “but we’re asking them to defer whatever it is that can still be deferred in their maintenance activities, to make sure that their optimum and dependable capacity will be made available during the summer period, particularly during election time.”

Energy officials similarly revealed that they are currently doing inventory of various facilities that could add up to power supply during the election period and throughout the dry months of summer – including the generating facilities and battery energy storage systems (BESS) that are currently undergoing commissioning and testing phases; the capacity import that can be channeled via the high voltage direct current (HVDC) system connecting Luzon and Visayas grids; as well as the scale of participation in the interruptible load program (ILP) being enforced by the government and the DUs.

For the fuel constraint from the Malampaya gas field, in particular, Marasigan specified that it will only be the 1,200-megawatt Ilijan plant that may be de-rated, because the gas plants of First Gen could switch to liquid fuels.

He expounded that there are also 400MW of BESS technologies currently under testing and commissioning that could augment grid supply; and the GNPower Dinginin-2 power facility can also inject additional 150MW supply even at its pre-commercial operation state.

On the ILP participation of companies and industries with self-generating facilities, Marasigan emphasized that the scale they can count on for now would be at more than 500MW; although he conveyed that they are still targeting higher volume of up to 1,200MW via collaboration with Manila Electric Company.

“For the ILP, we already have 560MW available…if we can hit 1,000 to 1,200MW, then the confidence level of DOE (that brownouts will not happen) will go higher,” he asserted.

Fuentebella likewise noted that there are at least 57 generator sets (gensets) that the energy department can retrieve, but they are just coordinating with the Office of Civil Defense to assess what units can already be pulled out, since these gensets were used for power restoration when typhoon Odette barreled several parts of the country last December. ###

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