Petilla won’t resign, vows to avert blackouts

MANILA, Philippines - Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla has shrugged off a labor coalition’s call for him to resign, saying that he is committed to avert a looming power shortage in the summer of 2015.

“I won’t allow the blackouts to happen. I will do everything to fight it out because I know I am fighting for the people,” Petilla said in an interview.

He maintained that he did not deceive anyone when he said there would be a power shortage when he proposed to invoke Section 71 of the energy law last July to allow the government to tap additional power capacity through the purchase or lease of modular generator sets.

He explained that since he made the proposal in July and revealed the projected power situation next summer, additional capacity of some 437 megawatts was tapped.

“Before July, this did not exist. There was no 437 MW,” he said.

Petilla noted that President Aquino’s declaration of a state of emergency in the power sector summoned stakeholders and the private sector to cooperate and work together in finding solutions to the looming power woes.

A Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-led group called Nagkaisa has asked Aquino to fire Petilla for “deceiving the Filipino people with his manufactured power shortage scenario hitting the entire island of Luzon early 2015.”

The group said Petilla painted a wrong picture to justify the call for emergency powers.

“Secretary Petilla took the country for a ride. He bluffed the President, the Cabinet, the senators and congressmen, the business sector, the labor and consumer groups with his tall tales of thin power reserves to justify emergency powers that entail possible purchase of multibillion-peso generator sets,” Nagkaisa said in a statement.

But Petilla maintained that the power situation in the summer of 2015 is still critical with the shortage still at 700 MW, taking into account the need for reserves of 647 MW, which is the size of Sual, the biggest plant in Luzon.

“When it comes to power, supply and reserves go hand in hand,” he said.

The additional 447 MW will come from the First Gen Corp.’s Avion plant with 100 MW by April 2015, 36 MW from the upgrading of Millennium Energy’s Limay plant to be ready by March 2015, 20 MW as a result of the rehabilitation of the Bauang plant by March 2015, 10 MW from Petron’s Bataan plant to be ready by December 2014, 60 MW from JG Summit’s Batangas plant for commissioning in January 2015 and 20 MW from the Botocan hydroelectric plant in Laguna for completion in December 2014 for a sub-total of 246 MW.

The balance is estimated to come from participants of the interruptible load program. Under the ILP, big power users would use their own power to ease pressure on the grid.

Petilla said that while this is a good development, there is no guarantee that the committed capacities would come as expected and run smoothly.

“These are all photo finish. We don’t have control over this if something goes wrong, so it is very prudent for the government to have reserves,” he added.  – With Mayen Jaymalin