Electric coops to help solve Mindanao power woes

lectric cooperati es in Mindanao will be dealt with as part of the o erall solution to the energy crisis in the region as some of them are no longer operational due to ban ruptcy

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr said President uino directed nergy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla on Monday to continue efforts to address the tight power supply situation that was highlighted by the Mindanao-wide power outage that occurred last eb

The President also directed the Department of nergy to coordinate with the Department of Science and Technology in monitoring the in uiry into the causes of the unexpected brea down ccording to the DO the tightness in the Mindanao power supply situation is expected to persist through the months of March pril and May Coloma said yesterday

Coloma said there were remedies already in place to bridge the gap in supply but there were structural problems that would ta e time to address

e now that more than percent of the load is being carried by -year-old hydroelectric power plants that are no longer fully reliable They brea down fre uently and are dependent on water supply which is in turn affected by situations li e l i o and a i a phenomena Coloma said

He also explained that there were many players in the power industry whose roles must be clarified to come up with a comprehensi e understanding of the issue

or example the distribution utilities ou will remember that last time we mentioned a place li e Maguindanao where there are to hours brownout nd if we are to in estigate the problem really is the local utility and one of the problems is their huge debt to power generators Coloma said