Less brownouts in Cotabato as TSI's coal begins operations

KIDAPAWAN CITY -Power interruptions in North Cotabato could be lessened to less than an hour once the coal-fired power plant owned by AboitizPower in Davao City becomes fully operational this July, an official from Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Cotelco) said. Cotelco general manager Godofredo Homez said the number of megawatts of power the co-op will purchase from AboitizPower’s Therma South, Inc (TSI) is, at any rate, enough to supply the load needed by their more than 110,000 power consumers all over their service areas. The Cotelco has signed a 10-MW power supply agreement with TSI, three years before the construction of plants could begin. The co-op is short of 12MW of power this June, according to Homez. If TSI begins its operations in July, we can get at least 10MW of power from the coal plant.We have a shortfall of 12MW daily because of a limited supply from the Napocor.And with only 2-3MW of shortfall, we can assure our consumers of brownouts of at least an hour a day.That can give us a sigh of relief,” said Homez. Theodore Biznar, AboitizPower’s marketing executive, said the generator testing of unit number one of TSI’s coal plant is set on June 9.The unit needs at least 15MW of power for its 24-hour operation. On June 13, he said the TSI targets the gradual loading of the unit, where it begins exporting power from the plant to the Mindanao grid.This will begin the commissioning of power to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), according to Biznar. A week after, the coal plant begins its reliability testing where the unit is already running at its full capacity at 150MW. Biznar clarified that even before the plant could begin its full commercial operations on July 13, the Cotelco and other electric cooperatives with supply agreement with the TSI can already receive power from the unit. This, he said, is because electricity would be exported” from the plant to the grid starting June 13 when the unit undergoes gradual loading or power commissioning. Meaning, the power consumers of North Cotabato can begin to experience a free-brownout day on June 13,” Homez said.