Dam I.T.

Last Friday, our class in Project Finance under Prof. Jay Layug went on a field trip to the Pantabangan-Masiway hydro-electric power plant in Nueva Ecija. Pantabangan dam was recently in the news since it was one of the last (if not the last) dam/s in Luzon with water levels not yet below critical.

We learned that the dam's primary purpose is to provide a water reservoir for irrigating the rice fields of Nueva Ecija and surrounding areas (considered the rice granary of the Philippines). Its secondary, though not less important, purpose is to provide cheap electricity from hydropower.

The hydro-electric power plant (HEPP) was the reason why we were there since we were then studying project finance in the context of the Philippine power industry. Hydropower is substantially cheaper (at only 80c per kwh) compared to other power plants fueled by natural gas, diesel or coal (at least P4 per kwh). Moreover, it takes only 10 minutes for a hydropower plant to start-up as compared to 12 hours in other types of power plants due to warming up requirements. Hence, hydroplants like the Pantabangan-Masiway play a crucial role during blackouts since they could be the first to supply electricity into the grid. (Think worst case election scenario...)

The Pantabangan HEPP was built in 1977. It has 2 power generators (housed inside the big white building in the picture) each of which has (originally) a capacity of 50 MW. After it was sold by the government to the Lopez-owned First Gen Holdings, upgrading of the plants was begun. As of Dec 2009, one of the generators has been upgraded to 60 MW and its Cold-war era manual controls and gauges were replaced by modern computers. The other would be upgraded next before the end of 2010. Our visit then was made with perfect timing for it gave us a chance to compare the old technology with the new.

The 2 engineers in the control room agreed that the new computerized controls were far more convenient than the old manual controls. They don't have to go up and down the HEPP's floors anymore since everything can be controlled by one person using a single computer (they had two in the control room but I forgot to ask why). I took a glance at the interface and had a layman's impression that the instruments were more varied and provided more details to the operator. Also, it allowed the operator to have a diagram of the dam and HEPP from various angles and sections. The picture that the new I.T. based controls provide speaks a thousand words more than the dials and levers that the old controls had. With more information available to the operator, the upgraded HEPP can be operated more efficiently than the old one (same volume of water, 20% more power generated). It appears that the new I.T. controlled HEPP is trouncing the old in terms of efficiency.

"What happens if the computers crash?" I asked the senior engineer. He gave my question a second of thought and with an awkward smile answered: "Di pa naman nangyayari yun. Saka may two-year warranty naman ang mga 'to."

I guess the jury is still out on reliability. The old technology still works after having been in service for a third of a century. Can the new be relied on to last as long? I'm betting on I.T. But if I ever lose this bet, my only prayer is that the dice never fall on election day.

Source of picture: EDC website:
http://www.energy.com.ph/our-projects/hydro/