To fast-track the entry of new investments in the country, the Department of Energy needs to improve and increase the power supply, House Deputy Minority Leader and LPG-MA party list Rep. Arnel Ty said yesterday.

Ty said the precarious reserve was described as “critically low” and the lack of “energy security” could discourage new investors and dampen jobs' creation in the months ahead.

“Our flimsy power reserve margins suggest that all three grids in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao are easily vulnerable to increasing outages during extreme high demand,” Ty said in a statement.

He claims that the menace of potentially escalating outages has also made residential, commercial and industrial consumers highly susceptible to electricity price hikes, as supply becomes severely short of demand.

LPG-MA party list has been batting for stronger government supervision of all energy markets, so as to reinforce consumer protection against potentially unfair trade practices and pricing abuses.

“Should a large power generator suddenly conk out, Luzon could lurch from supply disruptions,” Ty warned.

“In fact, Luzon would have started to stagger from outages as early as May, had the Department of Energy not prevailed upon some generating companies to defer the maintenance shutdown of their facilities (to this month),” he said.

In the Visayas, Ty said power reserves are hovering near zero, while Mindanao continues to wobble from recurring outages.

Based on the “power situation outlook” of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines as of June 10, the Luzon grid has an available capacity of 8,816 megawatts versus system peak demand of 7,884 MW, for a gross reserve of only 932 MW, or just 10 percent.

The Visayas grid has a capacity of 1,646 MW against peak demand of 1,566 MW, for a gross reserve of just 80 MW, or less than five percent.

Meanwhile, the Mindanao grid’s 1,252-MW capacity is five percent or 61-MW short of the 1,313-MW peak demand.

“Two years ago, except for Mindanao, we had double these reserve margins,” Ty pointed out.

He stressed the need for adequate power reserves to keep all three grids functioning in cases of extreme high demand.

“Current reserve margins are precarious, and imply that our supplies of electricity across all three grids have become unreliable,” he emphasized.

Power reserves refer to extra capacity immediately available to the system to meet demand in case a generator goes down, or there is another disruption to supply.

Most power systems around the world are designed so that, under normal conditions, the reserve is always at least equal to the capacity of the largest generator plus a fraction of peak demand.

Ty warned that the “fragile” power supply, if left unchecked, could jeopardize the country’s ability to attract more investments and create badly needed new jobs.

“In fact, we risk dampening economic activity and possible job losses the moment we start experiencing increasing outages,” he said.

“The government has to reassure investors that no effort is being spared to address both our short-term and our long-term power supply requirements,” Ty said.*PNA

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