Philippine energy security still elusive amid coal outages, gas hype

ALBAY – A yellow alert over the Visayas grid yesterday once again shows how weak and unstable the Philippine power system is. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) issues the alert when power reserves fall below the required contingency level.

The Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) calls these incidents systemic vulnerabilities, with supply shortages persisting even during periods of low electricity demand.

At the same time, energy watchdog Power for People Coalition (P4P) cautions against overhyping a newly announced gas discovery in Palawan, arguing it will not deliver promised energy security or affordability.

Fragile grid reliability

According to ICSC, the Visayas grid suffered a 38-percent shortfall on January 20 despite the cool season, as coal plants went offline — both planned and unplanned — and geothermal facilities ran below capacity.

The outages removed 867 MW from the system, exposing how fragile supply remains even under relatively low demand.

“This is a significant shortfall occurring not during extreme heat or peak consumption, but during a period of relatively low demand,” the ICSC noted in a statement. 

ICSC stresses that recurring grid alerts stem from the country’s overreliance on coal and other centralized plants prone to outages, leaving Filipinos exposed to unreliable supply and high electricity costs. 

To address these risks, the group urges strict compliance with maintenance schedules, stronger penalties for outage violations, and accelerated investment in distributed renewable energy.

Negligible scale

Meanwhile, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s announcement of a “significant” gas discovery in the Malampaya East?1 reservoir raises questions about the country’s energy future. 

At 98 billion cubic feet, just four percent of Malampaya’s original reserves, the find is too small to shift the energy mix, the Power for People Coalition (P4P) says. 

Marcos Jr. notes the new field could power “5.7 million households for a year,” but against decades of rising demand and the quick depletion of gas fields, it barely counts.

With the Philippines consuming hundreds of billions of kilowatt?hours annually, 14 billion kWh is only a small part of total demand.

“Our country’s energy security and stability should not be banked on this find, especially as existing gas wells near depletion,” P4P convenor Gerry Arances says. He warns that doing so only locks the Philippines into a volatile, corruption?prone system that leads to high electricity costs.

Instead, Arances points to the Philippines’ vast renewable potential of more than 1,200 GW as a far more promising path. In its statement, P4P emphasizes that before LNG entered Meralco contracts, domestic gas generation costs ranged from P4 to P6/kWh, while solar averaged P3 to P5/kWh.

The ICSC likewise stresses the need to build a resilient, distributed power system to reduce dependence on fragile baseload plants. (RTS, JDS)

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