CEMENT company Cemex Philippines will provide the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) its excess power to minimize outages caused by insufficient supply.
Cemex’s Apo Cement Corp. will sell to Veco the 10 megawatts (MW) excess power generated by its diesel fuel plant in Naga, Cebu during peak hours.
Veco’s franchise area covers Metro Cebu towns and cities where demand for power reaches its peak around 6 to 9 p.m.
Cemex and Veco signed a one-year interim power supply agreement at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel yesterday. The agreement will be submitted to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for approval.
Veco corporate communications manager Ethel Natera said the generation charge that will be imposed Cemex/Apo Cement will be known after the ERC review and approval of the interim power supply agreement.
The power supply situation in Cebu has been described as “critical” as declining output of aging National Power Corp. plants can hardly cope with the growing demand. This situation has resulted in power interruptions during peak hours.
With a couple of power plants scheduled for preventive maintenance this month, Veco estimated a 10- to 20-MW shortage in Cebu.
The effect of the shortage has been mitigated by the Interruptible Load Program that Veco is implementing together with several industries and commercial
establishments that have their own power generation plants. The program, which was also initiated with the support of the Cebu Provincial Government, allows
participating industries and commercial establishments to deload from Veco’s system during shortages and run their own power generation units.
The ERC has granted Veco provisional authority to implement the program and to pay participating industries and establishments the costs they incur when running their own power generation units. Those that have signed up for the program include SM, Ayala and E-Mall shopping centers, Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and San Miguel Corp.
The payment that Veco makes to private firms under the Interruptible Load Program will be shouldered by the distribution utility’s customers.
“An additional supply of one megawatt is already a (big) help to us,” said Sebastian Lacson, former Veco vice president for administration and customer service group and now chief reputation officer of Aboitiz Equity Ventures.
Veco said that its agreement with Cemex will help address the power shortfall experienced by its customers in the past weeks.
“It has been estimated that the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid suffers from a total peak demand deficit of 155 MW, of which 20 to 30 are in Cebu alone... We are happy that the excess power we are able to generate from our operations here can be used to help alleviate the power shortage in the province,” said Cemex Philippines president Sergio Menendez.
Darwin Mariano, Cemex Philippines public affairs director for Asia, said the cement plant’s excess power is the result of the company’s energy efficiency measures. Apo Cement Corp.’s power plant has a capacity to generate 66 MW.
Mariano said, though, that Cemex’s core business is not power generation but providing quality cement to the market. NRC with.
Source: The Sunstar Daily Cebu
