Quo vadis Mindanao?

WHEN the new President, Rodrigo R. Duterte, assumes office on June 30, one of the many key issues that needs to be addressed expeditiously is the lingering power lack in Mindanao. (As I write this piece, a city-wide blackout is again felt in Cagayan de Oro and elsewhere in Mindanao).

The Movement for a Blackout-Free Mindanao is sending a distress signal this early to Matina Enclaves to include in the priority agenda the pestering problem on the unstable power supply in Mindanao–at the very least, during the first 100 days of the Duterte administration.

There is no denying the fact that for so long a time now, Mindanao always got the flak of annoying power blackouts due to sporadic bombings of pylons coupled with unstable power reserves, thanks but no thanks to the government’s intransigent and verbose energy policy.

In the past five years, severe and chronic power shortages had afflicted Mindanao and these can be traced directly to the lack or the absence of base-load power plants to meet the growing power demand in the island.

Add to this power deficiency is Napocor’s aging hydroelectric power plants in Iligan that have been locked in the “ICU,” constantly suffering from water-level fluctuations and plain mechanical stress.

Gone are the days when these hydro-based power plants, built in the 1970s, efficiently deliver power 24/7 Mindanao-wide. The Agus hydro complex then was the most reliable power source in the island.

Moreover, both the Agus and Pulangi hydroelectric complexes, which supply about 60 percent of the Mindanao power requirements, have remained with the government despite the enactment of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).
Early on, there was this push to privatize the Iligan and Pulangui hydro complexes by creating the Mindanao Power Corp. but the bill has been gathering dust in the halls of Congress.

Also, there was this strong objection from the business community saying that it would be better if the government retained the ownership of the two complexes to halt private power companies in increasing their rates.

Further, Mindanao also needs efficient and viable power distributors with the capacity to deliver a steady supply to electric consumers at reasonable costs.

Mindanao has been suffering from a deficit of 200 megawatts, and to help reduce the shortfall, the new administration should size up untapped sources that can readily provide additional capacity to the Mindanao grid to satisfy the region’s increasing power demand.

And there was this grid interconnection, long perceived by energy experts as one of the feasible solutions to end the island’s power shortage. The Mindanao power grid has been isolated with the rest of the country.

However, the Chinese-dominated National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) mandated to manage the country’s transmission grid for 25 years has yet to come up with a feasible study for the interconnection project.

The Mindanao power problem has been in existence since the early 1990s and during that time, only a few independent power producers have decided to build power projects on the behest of the national government.

Fast forward, there is now a serious concern on the island’s power mix, favoring the generally cheap coal-fired plants as against the expensive renewable energy projects.

Henceforth, investors on renewable energy projects are not so keen to pursue renewable energy unless the government could provide incentives for these environment-friendly power projects to take off.

Looking at the brighter side however, the entry of new investments in the power industry such as solar energy is highly perceived to provide better business climate and will enhance confidence of the business sector in Mindanao.

But we can only heave a sigh of relief once the incoming administration of Duterte acts swiftly on the prevailing power problem in Mindanao.

A good start perhaps is appointing a Mindanaoan to head the Department of Energy (DOE).

E-mail: ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com