The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) stressed the need for immediate and long-term solutions regarding Mindanao’s power constraints, to prepare for possible system peaks this summer and in 2014 as well as for increasing generating capacity and managing demand. In the latest policy note titled “The Urgent Need to Increase Baseload Generating Capacity in Mindanao,” PIDS said that there is a need for additional baseload generating capacity in the region, adding that while the electric power crisis in the region has passed, it could stage a “comeback,” since there had been no additions to baseload capacity recently. Senior Research Fellow Adoracion Navarro, author of the policy note, said that when one looks closely at data, the root of the Mindanao power problem is the inadequate baseload capacity, which was aggravated by the significant reduction in the available capacity of government-owned hydropower plants. “The Mindanao region not only runs short of baseload generating capacity but also depends heavily on hydropower. More than 51 percent of generated power in Mindanao come from hydropower plants,” PIDS said. Navarro said that among traditional baseload technologies, or plants that can produce energy at a constant rate, are coal, geothermal, and nuclear.
