Sufficient power supply is important to move forward — but it’s something the administration has so far struggled to achieve.
Mindanao has been suffering from the lack of electricity. Other provinces like Occidental Mindoro and Palawan are suffering from long hours of blackout.
The Luzon grid is no exception — power supply is unstable whenever some power plants stop working.
It may have taken some time, but the Department of Energy (DOE) said that new power facilities will be up and running beginning this year.
“Kung titignan nating yung outlook for the country — Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, marami tayong committed projects, meaning may financial closure, and some of these are starting to be constructed,” explained Department of Energy Officer-in-Charge Usec. Zenaida Monsada.
In Luzon, a total of 2,300 megawatts will be added to the grid from June this year until September 2019.
The Visayas grid will also be augmented by about 442-megawatts, while Mindanao — which has endured power shortages for many years now — will get an additional 2,000 megawatts.
Based on the Energy Department’s 5-year outlook, the additional capacity in Luzon and Mindanao will mean there will be no blackouts until 2020.
Supply will remain stable in the Visayas until 2018, as data shows there will be more demand by that year.
With the fast-paced growth of the economy, both government and the private sector must work fast to keep up with the growing demand for power. For a country growing faster than most of its neighbors, there’s no room to play catch up in the quest for stable power.
“I think the industry as a whole recognizes that the only way to ensure power reliability and adequacy is to have more power plants online both as a source of actual supply when it is needed and as a reserve as well in the event of forced or sudden outages including scheduled outages,” said MERALCO Spokersperson Joe Zaldarriaga.
But if government wants more power plants, economists say it should make the process easier for investors.
It takes over a hundred permits to build a single power plant.
“You can just imagine how much of a disincentive that would be for investors. Now if you don’t have enough investors, if they don’t come in then you don’t have additional capacity and at the, let’s say, fast-paced of growth of the economy then that can be worrisome because we might end up eating up what little reserves we have,” said Peter Lee U, dean of the University of Asia and the Pacific’s School of Economics.
