ZAMBOANGA CITY – The Mindanao Business Council (MinBC) and the Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce and Industry had organized the Mindanao Power Summit aimed at addressing the shrinking reserve capacity of the Mindanao Power Grid.

The Summit will be held on December 2 and 3 at the Xavier Estates Sports and Country Club in Cagayan de Oro City and will focus on three major themes – Creating an Enabling Environment for Investors in Power Generation, Addressing Governance Issues for Sufficient and Reliable Power and, lastly, Mainstreaming Sustainable Responsible Investments in the Power Industry.

A Mindanao Power Action Agenda will also be presented during the Summit to Energy Regulation Commission (ERC) Chairperson Zenaida Ducut.

Ducut is expected to respond to the Agenda which is a consolidation of all the inputs gathered during the Mindanao-wide consultations conducted in August.

In a statement, the MinBC said that in the next five years, Mindanao’s annual power requirement is expected to grow by an average of six percent while the island’s dependable capacity has been on a standstill at 1,510 megawatts.

The MinBC warned that if left unchecked, the entire Mindanao grid will be experiencing regular rotating brownouts starting next year.

The power shortage in Mindanao is expected with the coming in of additional new investments that are anticipated to further deplete the grid’s reserve capacity.

By 2014, projections have it that Mindanao will have a deficit capacity of 484 megawatts which is equivalent to putting out power in the five major cities of Mindanao – Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Butuan, and Cotabato, the MinBC said.

“The situation will reach a critical state if we do not act fast and act now. We do not want a repetition of the power crisis in the early '90s where we acted too late,” MinBC Chairman Vicente Lao said.

Adding “and we did not have much choice of the available solutions but to avail of whatever was available at that time, regardless of the cost.”