BUTUAN CITY – Authorities have warned that they might be forced to shut down the Agus plants in Lake Lanao and Pulangi plant in Bukidnon, both sources of the Mindanao grid, within 40 days if water level continues to recede by at least two centimeters a day.

The warning was raised during a meeting among electric cooperatives’ general managers, corporate managers and power stakeholders with the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and Grid Management Committee (GMC) at Davao City Light Conference Room, in Bajada, Davao City on Tuesday.

The meeting was presided by Engr. Mario Pangalinan, vice chairman of GMC and executive vice president of Philippine Market Whole Sale Electricity Spot Promotion.

The meeting was called to plan measures to mitigate the effects of the Mindanao power crisis.

As of Tuesday night, Lake Lanao’s current elevation was already at 699.05 meters, which was already below the critical level of 699.15 meters.

“At two centimeters water down a day, in 40 days it will dry up and we might be forced to shut down the Agus plants to protect their turbines from further damage,” said Engr. Noli Namocatcat, corporate and plans manager of Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative.

He said they will shut down the Agus plants when the water level reaches 698.15 meters.

There are only five Agus hydroelectric plants currently operating – Agus 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 while only one plant in Pulangi is operational, it was also learned.

To lessen the effects of the worsening power problem, the participants in the meeting considered leasing modular generating sets of 160 to 260 MW, now currently available in Taiwan or Dubai.

As this developed, the Mindanao grid will continue to experience generation deficiency of 700 MW, the NGCP latest advisory said.

This is attributed mainly to limited available capacities from the National Power Corporation's (Napocor) hydropower plants, most of which have water reservoirs that are drying up due to the El  Niño weather disturbance, the NGCP said.

Todate, Napocor's Agus plants have a total available capacity of 65 MW out of the total rated capacity of 727 MW while Pulangi plant, also owned by Napocor, has an available capacity of 20 MW out of the total rated capacity of 255 MW.

The NGCP said the island’s hydro-electric power plants, which provide the bulk of Mindanao's power requirements, have very limited capabilities due to the already critical low water inflow to reservoirs.