DOE: Planning failure caused Visayas power shortfall

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Energy (DOE) has admitted that the Visayas lacks sufficient baseload generation to meet growing electricity demand, prompting recurring power alerts and exposing the region’s vulnerability to the loss of even one major power plant.

Energy Secretary Sharon Garin made the admission during the joint congressional hearing of the House committees on energy, Visayas development and legislative franchises on Oct. 3. She stressed that the government needs additional generation capacity to address the supply gap, which could persist until 2028.

“Even with the absence of just a single power plant, we will go on alert and that is not good for business,” she said.

She explained that while Negros can produce excess electricity during the day, much of the excess comes from solar generation. Demand, however, peaks in the evening when solar output declines.

“Where then will the electricity come from at night?” Garin asked, pointing to the Visayas’ dependence on generation from other islands and on interconnection.

“Negros alone cannot survive because there is not enough baseload,” she said.

Garin also warned that an outage in Panay could immediately affect Negros because of the islands’ dependence on interconnection.

She also pointed to Cebu’s rapidly growing electricity demand, which continues to outpace the delivery of new generation projects.

“Cebu is growing exponentially and projects are not keeping up with the demand. We have to catch up. We still have time to catch up,” Garin said.

Lawmakers probe outages

House committee on energy chair and Palawan 2nd district Rep. Jose Alvarez questioned why the Visayas continues to experience power alerts despite the interconnection of the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao grids.

He pointed to the simultaneous shutdown of several power plants as a major factor behind the crisis.

“Why is excess power from Luzon and Mindanao not immediately delivered to Visayas?” he asked.

Garin explained that the transmission grid continues to function, but Mindanao also faced generation problems during the period and entered red alert.

South Cotabato 2nd district Rep. Ferdinand Hernandez then pointed to the return of several generating units as evidence of the critical role of generation availability in preventing grid alerts.

“It is clear that transmission is not the issue. There is demand, and there is supply,” he added.

ACT teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio questioned the government’s planning after Garin told lawmakers that the country needs years to bring additional generation capacity online.

“Obviously, there is failure in planning. You said three years is needed. This should have been projected before, but it wasn’t done. The baseload is insufficient so here we are,” he said.

Batteries as immediate measure

Garin identified battery energy storage systems as an immediate measure to address the mismatch between daytime excess generation and evening peak demand.

She said the DOE asked the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to contract battery storage facilities as early as May.

She explained that battery storage could capture excess daytime generation in the Visayas and release the stored electricity when demand rises in the evening.