Enrile: Energy summit needed to ensure power supply

In an outbreak of hostilities like the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Philippines may find half of its energy system vulnerable since half of the fuel sources for power are imported.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile said he will recommend the assembling of an energy summit for the government to plot a contingency measure for the energy supply to be maintained in case of a serious emergency.

In the "Bayan ni Juan" television program yesterday, Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines president Richard Nethercott estimated that half of the country's power supply will be compromised if the country is blocked from importing fuel.

"Majority of the coal plants use imported coal. If there is a supply disruption, 50 percent of the power sources will be affected," Nethercott said.

He added: "We are preparing a study that we plan to submit to the Department of Energy advocating government intervention in the importation of fuel."

The focus now, Nethercott said, is the development of renewable energy, which is the current direction in terms of the development of new power plants.

Enrile said in case of a war in the South China Sea and a sea blockade halts overseas supply, "we can't draw from fuel sources overseas."

"We might all of a sudden have a Ukraine-Russia situation in the West Philippine Sea, what will happen to us?" he asked.

Meanwhile, Philippine Electricity Market Corp. President Noel Aboboto confirmed about 50 percent of the generation mix comes from imported fuel.

Nethercott said the current capacity of coal-fired plants totals 9,000 megawatts.

IEMOP, which operates the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, gave Daily Tribune a table of the current generation mix which showed that 4,434 gigawatt-hour of electricity or 57.6 percent of capacity is from coal; 1,407 GWH or 18.3 percent is from natural gas; 772 GWH or 10 percent from geothermal; and 582 GWH or 7.6 percent from hydroelectric plants.

Links to improve supply

Electricity supply, Nethercott added, will greatly improve once the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines completes projects to link the different islands.

In Visayas and Mindanao, the target was for interconnection to be completed in 2022 but it will be energized likely next year.

"There were some delays. NGCP has other interconnection projects in the pipeline that will link up Palawan and Mindoro to the main grid, for instance," he said.

Additional lines, he added, will be installed linking the Negros Island to Panay, between Claver and Siargao, Camarines Sur and Catanduanes.

With many of the power sources still not connected to the main grid, IEMOP can't dispatch the full generation capacity of all the power plants.

"What we are monitoring are registered and available capacity, and what is termed as reliable or dispatchable capacity," Nethercott said.

Power summit

"We should hold a Power Summit and it should have been done yesterday," Enrile said.

Enrile raised the question to IEMOP on how it protects consumers from high prices through the dispatch of electricity.

"Offtake is around 10 percent to 12 percent of total electricity consumption. The other 89 percent is contracted and regulated by the ERC," Nethercott said.

Enrile said: "Windfarm and solar are high priced compared to other sources of power supply. Which do you dispatch first in case there is a deficiency in the market at a given time?"

"We have a system that we term as 'merit order' that gives priority to plants such as solar and wind which are must-dispatch sources which means that electricity from them is dispatched immediately," Nethercott said.