Senator Grace Poe seeks an inquiry into the power outages plaguing Panay Island for years now to identify measures that would ensure continuous supply to consumers.
Meanwhile, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri called on the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to solve the power crisis in the Visayas, even as he expressed openness to amend the EPIRA (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) if needed.
In another development, Aboitiz Power Corp. said it expected power supply to remain thin, but denied a possible power crisis even as demand continues to go up due to economic rebound.
Poe filed Senate Resolution No. 579, saying it is time to put in place a “long-term solution to the power woes which have been severely impacting on the daily lives of residents and economic activities in the region.”
“Recurring power interruptions and massive blackouts should not be a way of life for our people in Panay Island,” the chairperson of the Senate committee on public services said.
She said concerned agencies must get a handle on the problem to end the intolerable suffering of the residents.
Poe stressed the need to determine the root cause of the distribution problems reported by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) allegedly due to the tripping of distribution utilities (DUs).
At the same time, the inquiry should delve into the position of electric cooperatives in Panay and Negros pointing to the NGCP as the cause of the problem, Poe said.
An electric cooperative cited a voltage fluctuation and frequency imbalance in the power lines under the management of the NGCP.
“There is an urgent need to determine the root of these grid disturbances, implement remedial measures and determine who shall be held liable to finally put an end to the blame-shifting between NGCP and the DUs, and ascertain possible franchise violations,” Poe said.
“There is also a need to look into the long-term solutions to the power interruptions and outages within the backdrop of the ‘thin’ supply of power in the Visayas grid,” she added.
Zubiri said the DOE and the NGCP must step forward and answer to the consumers this massive blackouts.
If they find the need to amend the EPIRA, Zubiri said they will tackle the amendment.
Since the EPIRA law is over two decades old, he said this can definitely be improved to help the power sector serve consumers better, and to help prevent recurring region-wide blackouts.
“We have received the administration’s suggested amendments to the EPIRA, and we are already studying these. We saw how these amendments can be further refined to best respond to the problems that we are hearing about from the power sector and especially from consumers.
But still, he said, the DOE and the NGCP must come forward with a clear explanation behind the blackouts, and more importantly, outline a solution.
“We cannot let this be the norm. Our people deserve better than this kind of service,” Zubiri said.
Zubiri noted that the power interruptions were “no longer just an inconvenience, but a major problem, affecting the economy and endangering the wellbeing of our people.”
Since late April, Zubiri said Western Visayas was hit by extensive blackouts, at the height of the summer season.
The blackouts, he said, have also led to many smaller businesses cutting down their operating hours.
In February, the region also suffered a power outage that lasted 10 hours, caused by a snake intrusion in the Panay Diesel Power Plant 1, according to the NGCP.
“The frequency of these blackouts is alarming, and it is on the DOE and the NGCP to get their act straight and find long-term solutions already,” said Zubiri
While few minutes of power interruption every once in a while is understandable, but frequent outages that last for hours and hours and cause loss of income is unforgivable.
“Let’s start with energy demand, it has bounced back quite significantly. In fact, we’re seeing record peaks in the last few weeks given the hot weather. Supply and demand margin remained thin,” Aboitiz Power president Emmanuel Rubio said in an interview with ANC.
Rubio said major capacities need to come in by 2024 and 2025 otherwise, supply will remain thin but “I will not say it is a crisis.”
He said aside from thin supply, power costs remain an issue. “Although some plants that have been mothballed are running or going to run, so the question now would be how much will the power cost be?”
Rubio said, however, that once the Ilijan power plant comes online, which may be cheaper than diesel plants serving peak demand, there will be some improvements in terms of power rates.
“DoE is actually pursuing the investments, coming up with programs to allow investors to actually invest on RE [renewable energy] through GEAP [Green Energy Auction Program] and the deliveries are for 2024, 2025 and they’re quite significant capacity, all of these will help contribute to solve this short-term issue,” he said.
Rubio said liquefied petroleum gas was one of the options to address supply in the short to midterm although it is still expensive.
“Later on, there’s really no other option but to actually build LNG. We have land, that’s why we are actually doing the feasibility studies for our 1,200 MW LNG,” he said.
Rubio also said the proposed LNG plant can meet the base load supply requirement by 2028 to 2030.
Meanwhile, he said his company remains interested in nuclear energy particularly small nuclear reactors.
“We are in continuous discussion with a number of SMR technology providers, I personally believe that SMRs will have a role to play in the Philippine energy setting,” he said.