THE government admitted that it could not still guarantee a brownout-free summer even if its Interruptible Load Program (ILP) is implemented in full force.
“If we run on ILP, I can guarantee you there will be brownouts but it will not be severe,” Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla said over the weekend.
Petilla meant an hour, at the very least, of power outage.
“For ILP, the protocol right now is only when there is a red alert issued. As example, I need 300 megawatts [MW] so I call on ILP participants to turn on their generation sets [gensets]. How long do you think they will turn on their gensets to provide 300 MW? It will take Meralco [Manila Electric Co.] more than an hour. So, at least, one-hour transition blackout,” Petilla said.
A red alert means there is supply deficiency. The scenario could
change if ILP is in effect during a yellow alert, which means there is “thin” power reserve.
However, Petilla said the price impact of this scenario would be higher than during a red alert. Petilla explained that more ILP participants are needed during yellow alert, because “they are on standby and, in
effect, participating in the program even if supply, albeit thin, is still efficient.”
“Unless we change the protocol, we run it on yellow alert. But if we run it on yellow alert, the price impact will be higher because you need more ILP participants. If we get a massive number of participants, then we can go to yellow. That stabilizes the grid, but the price impact is still there,” Petilla said. He said, though, that the government, at least for the House of Representatives, is willing to pay for the difference.
“The proposal of the House is basically for the ILPs to be there but the government will pay for the difference. So you can run it on yellow and not have a massive price impact, because the government will subsidize price difference,” Petilla added.
Under the ILP, customers with large loads, like commercial establishments, will be asked to operate their own gensets if the grid operator projects a need to augment generation capacity in the Luzon grid. Through this, the aggregate demand for power from the system will be reduced to a more manageable level, helping ensure the availability of supply during the season.
With the ILP, power supply from the grid that will not be consumed by participating customers will be available for use by other customers within the franchise area. Targeted ILP participants are
those with large embedded generation capacities, such as malls, large business establishments and factories.
Meralco earlier said its customers may pay extra 7.5 centavos per kilowatt-hour in monthly generation charge so the utility firm can compensate participants for the power-generation capacity that they are willing to deload.
Meralco needs to compensate its ILP participants for the expenses, particularly fuel, they will incur when they operate their own
gensets, instead of sourcing power from the grid.