Manila: Iloilo City is urging the national government to fast-track regulatory approvals for three energy projects in Western Visayas as the region grapples with power supply shortages. Mayor Raisa Tre±as said Tuesday that two of the projects are planned in Iloilo City and one in Guimaras, and are expected to add generation capacity and improve the region's power supply reliability.
According to Philippines News Agency, Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) has committed additional generation capacity targeted for operation by 2028. MORE Power Barge has committed a 40-megawatt power barge in Guimaras, with operations targeted to begin in the first quarter of 2027. PH Natural Gas is also expected to invest in Iloilo City. Tre±as mentioned that regulatory approvals are needed for construction to begin and for the projects to meet their target commissioning schedules.
The push comes as the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) raised red and yellow alerts for the Visayas grid on Wednesday. NGCP reported that the grid was placed under red alert for 10 hours, from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m., followed by a yellow alert from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. As of 8 a.m., available capacity stood at 2,124 megawatts against an expected peak demand of 2,555 MW.
A red alert indicates that available power is insufficient to meet demand and the grid's regulating requirements, while a yellow alert suggests that the operating margin is insufficient to meet the grid's contingency requirement. NGCP attributed the alerts partly to the unavailability of two large coal-fired power plants in the Visayas-PEDC Unit 3 and Therma Visayas Unit 1-and the outage of Therma Visayas Unit 2, along with limited power imports from the Mindanao grid.
MORE Power and Electric Corp. stated that the Visayas was facing a forecast power deficiency of 472 MW on Wednesday, prompting the utility to prepare for more aggressive manual load dropping to prevent a grid collapse. MORE Power President and CEO Roel Castro expressed optimism that the affected generation plants, particularly baseload facilities, would return to service within the year.
Castro also welcomed a proposed congressional inquiry into the outages, believing it could help consumers better understand the causes of the power shortages and potential solutions. "We got the blame, but we'd like every consumer to know, to understand the problem. And that's how I hope the congressional inquiry would achieve," Castro said.
Tre±as emphasized that Iloilo will continue seeking investors to add generation capacity and reduce the city's vulnerability to power disruptions.
