These are some of the insights I gathered from the "Empowering Juan" Forum last Monday March 24, 2014 courtesy of MM Opeman group under Prof Arguelles and from the resource persons of ERC, DOE and PCCI (who formerly ran a 400 mW) power barge:
1. The EPIRA unbundled the power into: Gencos, Transmission and Grid, DU (Distribution Units - Retailers like Meralco and cooperative and customers. In other words, Napocor was privatized. The NG is still paying the subsidized power under Napocor (when they were said to be losing at the rate of P1m/minute) So when John Galicia asked question on govt buying into Meralco....
2. According to Atty Jose Alejandro of PCCI, the cost of power is inversely proportional to the rate of growth of the economy. It is time to subdize power (to return to pre EPIRA
3. According to ERC, there was lack of free market forces which caused the P4.15 power rate hike for Meralco. WESM should be a mechanism to bring down the rate, but there was lack of offering from Gencos. It will be disciplining the participants in the spot market.
4. According to Sec Petilla:
1.There is surplus power in Luzon grid. Eveybody wants to go to Luzon, where the buyers/users are
2. Power situation is tight in Mindanao, and somewhat in equilibrium in the Visayas.
3. Not everybody is having brown outs in Mindanao depending on the DU. CDO and Davao do not have brown outs because the more advanced DUs are buying power elsewhere when they forecast shortage
4. DOE has a website where the costs and the data on power players, power outlook are: www.kuryetente. org.ph You can see that for instance the lowest cost in power, Lanao del Sur coop has the most brown out. Cam Sur will go into the dark soon because of the Aleco problem
5. Some transparency is needed in the purchase contract with DU. Some DUs (coops) are corrupt and coop power struggle sometimes needs military intervention and could be so corrupt.
6. Our baseload is still coal which is the cheapest at P4.00/kwh. diesel is at P9.00 hydro is at P5.00, bunker fuel is at P6.00. Solar and wind (RE) are still expensive at P8.50. He sees a blend of coal and RE in the future. At this stage we cant be carbon and climate change conscious.
7. There are SPUG service areas: Mindoro, Palawan for which all electricity consumers shoulder the difference between cost of power at P17.00 and P6.50 subsidized cost.
8. For approval power projects at DOE:
1. He had the time line reduced from 3 years to only 45 days. Since he hates flippers (those who make money by selling service contracts that are uncapitalized, he imposed conditions that investments must be made very quickly after approval, otherwise the service contracts are promptly cancelled.
2. DOE will not interfere with choice of suppliers, equipment which his predecessors are accustomed to doing. If it will not cause any loss to the PHL govt, go ahead.
9. Regarding nuclear or revival of Bataan Nuclear Power Plant:
Without going into the pros and cons of disposal of nuclear wastes, or the possibility of meltdown as with the case of Fukushima TIPPCO, the use of nuclear power, say for Meralco which sells power at P11.50, the BNPP can only contribute a reduction of about P0.30 only since BNPP is only 600 mW. even if the power costs is only at P2.00/kwh (Talk about cost benefit analysis)
10. It is surprising that speaker here are mostly lawyers. What: lawyers run our country's power system? It thought engineers should be one running these?
11, The power sector always has contravida especially for RE: for wind - it is noisy and kills migratory bird, for hydro it causes flooding and death of fish and flora and fauna, for coal it causes climate change. For solar - what?
We are thankful for the education we had last Monday evening
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