DOE questioned over lack of plans to address power woes

MANILA, Philippines — A group has questioned the Department of Energy (DOE) and other government agencies involved in the energy sector why they do not have plans to address recent power woes in the country despite interruptions due to a lack of supply.

At the hearing of the House of Representatives committee on energy on Tuesday, Kuryente.org convener Bas Umali asked if consumers should be scared of what may happen with the country’s power sector, given that the DOE initially said the country has enough supply for the dry season but eventually declared an energy crisis.

“Last April 1 the DOE told us to relax because we have sufficient supply for this dry season.  But what appeared to happen, Madam DOE, it seems we were in for an April Fools’ prank because by the following weeks, we were faced with red and yellow alerts.  Then later, the DOE itself issued a statement saying that there is an electricity crisis,” Umali told the panel.

“Should we be wary if this is the trend?  Electricity is an important input for our productive and reproductive work, and especially during this dry season, we are facing intense heat […] Should we consumers be scared when the DOE advises us to save electricity as if it is the only thing we can do?” he added.

During the same hearing, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) official Lally Mallari said that the vast majority of the alert notices — the red and yellow alerts — raised over the Philippine grid were due to generation deficiency or the lack of supply during peak demand.

“Just to provide a quick statistics on how many times the Philippine grid has been put into alert notice, so from 2016 to 2023, we have experienced a total of 234 alert notices and 96.6 percent of this is due to generation deficiency, and four events are due to transmission and a combination of transmission or generation,” Mallari said.

“Now focusing on the April 16 incident […] So based on the projected available capacity that we submitted, 16,282 megawatts available capacity in Luzon, and based on the projection of the Department of Energy, the projected peak demand during that week is only around 13,214 megawatts […] however at 1:00 p.m. projection, the available capacity was only 13,131 megawatts,” he added.

This meant that there was an actual deficiency of 194 megawatts, causing brownouts in different areas.

According to Umali, there should be a concrete plan from DOE to address the matter, given that the data initially presented by NGCP showed that the power outages were due to supply issues.

“Would that suffice, that you would always ask us to save electricity?  We are looking for DOE’s plan to address this, but why is there none?” he asked.

Committee chair and Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco said it has been clear that the problem is supply because Congress has passed several laws already, but the situation has not improved.

“Why is it that every year we have these yellow or red alerts?  So with that, we see that — and everyone here I’m sure is in agreement — our problem is really on supply.  Which we cannot fathom because it has been how many decades already, and how come we still have supply problems,” he said.

Velasco noted that more hearings would be conducted to address the problem — adding that his province too was hard-hit by the brownouts.

“At the end of the day, this would be an appeal to Napocor (National Power Corporation).  I hope to get an update with what we would do because up to now we’re experiencing brown-outs.  After this hearing I think we need to do another round because there’s still a lot of things to discuss, a lot of things to be inputted in the amendments to the EPIRA (Electric Power Industry Reform Act),” he said.

“As you can see we cannot feel the heat anymore, I guess the worst is over, I’m sure the heat index is decreasing gradually, and that’s why I’m sure everyone here is feeling a lot cooler, so which would mean less use of electricity, which would mean we may see fewer yellow at red alerts,” he added.

Velasco, however, warned that government agencies may forget about the problems that hit the country during the dry season because the situation has normalized.

“My problem is after today, we might forget these problems.  You get what I’m saying?  Because it’s already normal.  That’s the problem, because when everything is normal, we’re not affected, it is thrown out.  But the purpose of these hearings is to make sure that we do not experience yellow and red alerts,” he noted.

Over the past few weeks, yellow and red alerts raised by the NGCP became a daily occurrence due to the thinning electric supply, attributed to the higher consumption during the country’s dry and hot season.

READ: Nationalization eyed to solve power crisis

Last April, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla himself called the frequent red and yellow alerts affecting the country’s power grids a calamity already.  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said other administrations forgot about power generation, noting that the country is only catching up now in terms of power infrastructure.