The Philippines especially Mindanao, faces the prospect of longer periods of darkness, and an automated electoral exercise without electricity, two months after rotating brownouts started, unless emergency power supplies are made on-stream immediately. Reports stated that the deficiency reached a new high of 700 megawatts last March 9, 2010. Since the
This power crisis would greatly affect the coming elections in May. This issue has brought uncertainty to many, in the same way that they fear the failure of election due to the crisis we are experiencing. To answer the problem, the Commission on Elections is proposing to buy a number of generators but it seems the government doesn’t agree about it because it would entail a huge cost. It was former President Joseph Estrada who said that the government could do something about it by the process of deduction. Moreover, based from a television interview he stated that by using their own generator sets, commercial and industrial plants will reduce pressure on the
The power crisis is an urgent national concern and the government should conceptualize and implement solutions before it’s too late. The mere fact that power crisis is affecting our daily lives and has an adverse effect on agriculture brought by El Ñino shows that it is a serious effect of climate change and must be given attention to.
In an article by Neal Cruz from Philippine Daily Inquirer, he stated that “the world supply of coal is tight. The price of coal has skyrocketed to more than $100 per metric ton, FOB, and is nearing $150 per metric ton. The cost of freight to the
Reports from the National Power Corp., said that the reduction in coal deliveries to NPC plants/IPPs has been aggravated by the fast use of contracted and delivered coal shipments because of the following: Inability of certain NPC plants/IPPs (Iligan, Tiwi, Makban, Calaca and Masinloc) to deliver target generation due to unscheduled outages and extended maintenance; NPC had to cover the shortages of non-NPC plants/IPPs (last week, one of the Meralco IPPs shut down operation for unknown reasons; NPC was forced to step into the picture to solve the supply problem);Unexpected delays in the turnover of NPC plants sold by PSALM; and Failure of scheduled coal biddings and delays in coal delivery due to unpredictable spikes of coal prices.
Based from the reports of National Power Corp., the Filipinos should expect the unexpected when it comes to the power supply in the country.
