THE VOICE OF BUSINESS IN NORTHERN MINDANAO

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Mindanao power crisis threatens 1,000 workers - Manila Bulletin


Mindanao power crisis threatens 1,000 workers


By MIKE U. CRISMUNDO
March 6, 2010, 7:56pm

BUTUAN CITY — The estimated 1,000 employees of 27 electric cooperatives spread in various areas in Mindanao may be affected if the power crisis continues to worsen, authorities said Saturday.
In an interview with top officials of various electric cooperatives in Mindanao, work scheduling, rotation of workers and even temporary retrenchment might take effect to avert further losses if the power curtailment imposed by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and the National Power Corporation (Napocor) to various cooperatives continue.
The NGCP and Napocor are imposing 2, 6 and 8 hours of rotating power curtailment to different electric cooperatives in Mindanao since last month due to the power deficiency.
However, this fallback position will only be done and effected if their respective cooperative boards and energy regulatory boards will approve of their resolutions or recommendations.
“This only happens if the situation will worsen. We also abide to our cooperative board and ERC decision based on our recommendation to avert further losses,” said Horacio T. Santos, general manager of the 97,000 billed consumers of the Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative (Aneco).
At least 43 percent of the major industries and the electric cooperative severely lost millions of pesos since the start of power curtailment in Agusan del Norte and Butuan City, the set of big companies and regional offices in the Caraga region.
If the power crisis in the southern island also worsened, the region’s largest electric cooperative is also planning to buy 2 million kilowatt hours from the 100 megawatt Nasipit Power Barge which has just been bought by the Aboitiz group on March 1, this year.
On the same occasion, the Davao del Sur Electric Coop. (Dasureco) announced that it plans to retrench their workers to avoid further losses due to the effects of the forced power outages implemented by the NGCP and Napocor.
Jesus Dela Victoria, Dasureco general manager, said they have already lost at least 50 percent of what they regularly made before the NGCP started implementing the load curtailment scheme as Mindanao’s hydropower plants lost water due to the dry spell.
On the other hand, officials of the Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives (Amreco) also voiced the same strategy and plans to avert further losses in power crisis.
However, Amreco officials blew their top when government allegedly planned to reduce their power allocation to only 50 percent if the power situation will worsen.
This development came out during an emergency meeting with Amreco and Napocor early this week in Cagayan de Oro City and will mostly likely impact employees in electric cooperatives.

NPC plan to cut Mindanao power to 50% to kill business - Business Mirror


CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Electric cooperatives in Mindanao are questioning the National Power Corp.’s (NPC) plan to further reduce their power allocation to only about 50 percent or less.
At the same time, the Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Power Cooperatives (Amreco) urged the National Bureau of Investigation  and the Joint Congressional Power Commission to separately investigate the National Grid Corp.of the Philippines (NGCP) for possibly contriving the power crisis in Mindanao. They suspect it is “artificial” and is meant to justify a move to increase power rates.
Sergio Dagooc, Amreco president, said many of their members were angered when NPC officials announced at a recent meeting here  than it planned to further cut back the power allocation of power cooperatives to just 50 percent or less.
“Imagine the implications of this move. This means that 50 percent of revenues from power consumers will be gone. If our co-op’s load is reduced, it will also reduce, more or less, the load of every electric co-op, every private power company, even that of industrial customers,” Dagooc, also general manager of the Misamis Oriental Electric Cooperative, said.
“For example, if I have a condom factory, to make my condoms, my machines must run on more than 1 megaWatt. Below that, the machines won’t. The same thing with a rice mill. How can the machines mill rice or corn if these only run on 50-percent reduced power?” Dagooc, who manages the Siargao Island Rural Electric Cooperative and the Dinagat Island Rural Electric Cooperative, added.
Dagooc stressed it was not just a simple issue of cutting off power.
“This is more seriously an issue of revenue reduction in the long run. How will our cooperatives pay for the salaries of co-op employees if our product or service is reduced to half?” he asked.
He said the power crisis in Mindanao has negatively impacted the economy of the island.
He echoed suspicions the power crisis is contrived. “Some sectors might be manipulating the events to cause an artificial crisis,” he said, adding that power cooperatives were informed last October that the power-supply shortage would peak and be felt in 2014 yet, due to load growth that could no longer be supported by the present power generators.
“The last annual update we had from the National Power Corp. and the now-defunct National Transmission Corp. [Transco] stated that the power crisis in Mindanao would occur in the year 2014,” he said.
The Transco has since been replaced by the NGCP following its privatization in 2008. B. Fabe
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