The Manila Electric Co. warned Monday that rotating power outages will likely continue until June because of the increasing demand for electricity, while power rates will go up amid a supply shortage.
READ: Meralco users suffer brownouts
Meralco issued the statement as the grid was once again plunged into a red alert status on Monday, the eighth red alert since April. As a result, Meralco had to implement manual load dropping or rotating brownouts on Monday, affecting customers in Manila, Valenzuela, Las Piñas, Batangas, Cavite, Quezon, and Laguna.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines issued a red alert notice in the Luzon grid from noon to 4 p.m. while a yellow alert was declared from 9 a.m. to noon, from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Monday due to insufficient operating reserve.
“It’s already the eighth day of manual load dropping that Meralco has been doing since April 10,” said Ronnie Aperocho, Meralco senior vice president and head of networks.
“One of the reasons for the deficiency is there are still three plants in Bataan that are still isolated from the grid, the GN power unit 2 and the two units of the San Miguel plants in Limay. These three plants have a combined capacity of 660 megawatts and there is still no estimate when these plants can be synchronized to the grid but our forecast is even if these three plants would be able to go back to the grid because of the increasing power demand during the summer months, especially next month, we still see several days of yellow and red alert and will even in fact extend until the month of June.”
The power plants were affected by last week’s earthquake while several power plants are still down for maintenance.
Meralco chairman Manuel Pangilinan said red and yellow alerts may eventually lead to a “serious power shortage in the next few years unless immediate action is done to resolve the root cause of the problem.”
Pangilinan said there was a need to add more capacity to the grid with decisive action on much-delayed construction of new power plants.
Peak demand within the franchise area of Meralco was at 6,950 megawatts in the first quarter, up one percent over the 6,867 MW in the same period last year. On April 22, at the height of red alert warnings, the peak demand reached 7,493 MW, surpassing the 2018 peak demand on May 23 of 7,399 MW.
Meralco has been urging the government to put up additional capacity for the past years in the wake of the forecast increase in power demand amid anticipated higher economic growth.
“I could say I was vindicated but that does not change the situation. So we just address the current situation. The fact is that even if all the approvals are procured or given to us, this will not happen in the next two to three years. It takes a while for any power plant to be built. So I’m afraid that I will probably get criticized for saying this, this power issue is going to be with us for the next two to three years,” Pangilinan said.
Pangilinan said the government should “unleash the private sector” and allow them to build the needed capacity.
“I would just urge the government to get the approval process done as quickly as we can so that whatever power plants on the burner could be implemented as soon as possible. Frankly, I don’t understand it, that’s money of the private sector, no government guarantees required so I don’t understand [the dealy]. Unleash the private sector,” he said.
He added that increasing supply would bring prices down.
Meralco PowerGen president Rogelio Singson said peak demand has been going up and the increase reflects the level of power supply needed by the grid annually.
“DOE is right in saying that we need 600 MW every year,” Singson said.
Meralco officials also said electricity prices are also likely to go up due to the power outages. The average customer’s bill during the first quarter reflected the effects of higher prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market due to the forced outages of a number of baseload plants and the advanced scheduled maintenance of certain plants in preparation for the May 2019 elections.
The average WESM price shot up to P6.9378 per kWh in March driven by several power plant outages, increased trading amount to serve the rise in Luzon demand and coincidental line rental charges. There were 10 instances where the WESM price cleared at the primary cap of P32 per kWh in the first quarter.
Also on Monday, the state weather bureau said the water level at Angat Dam dropped to 179.5 meters on Monday, a decrease of 0.47 meters from the reading on Sunday.
READ: 'Conserve water, save Angat Dam'
In an interview with GMA News, Adelaida Duran, hydrologist at the weather bureau said the water level could hit 173.52 meters by the end of May.
Metro Manila relies heavily on Angat Dam as its main source of water. According to the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, Metro Manila gets 96 percent of its water from the dam, 3 percent from Laguna Lake and only 1 percent from deep wells.
