Despite mounting opposition, the Department of Energy (DOE) is crafting a dedicated power strategy for the proposed Pax Silica hub to ensure its massive electricity requirements are met without straining supply for households and businesses.

At a media briefing on Tuesday, Energy Secretary Sharon S. Garin said the agency is drafting a department circular that will establish the framework for supplying electricity to hyperscale data centers and technology hubs, whose demand could reach several thousand megawatts.

“Right now we are drafting a circular for us to formulate some of the… like what to do to put power in a data center or hub. There are several options,” Garin said.

She stressed that the country has sufficient capacity to support projects of varying sizes, provided consumer interests remain protected.

“I just want to emphasize whether it’s 50 megawatts (MW), 100 MW, or 5,000 MW. We can supply that, but we just need to make sure that anything we do to power a data center or hub will not put the rest of the country at a disadvantage so that our consumers have protection here,” Garin said.

Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina Guevara said the DOE is considering embedded generation as the fastest way to energize Pax Silica, allowing dedicated power plants to be built within or adjacent to the development instead of relying on electricity transmitted over long distances.

“One of the things that we could immediately do if we have contractors who are willing to locate at the hub if they can identify the capacity that they would need is to do what we call embedded generation because it’s the easiest part,” Guevara said.

“You will not need to transmit it from a faraway place if it’s already there at the location of the hub because the allocated area for this project is large. So that’s the first step.”

Guevara said the government also plans to align future transmission, distribution and generation investments with the project’s expected power requirements by incorporating them into the country’s long-term energy planning.

“If we already have the timeline for the additional capacities per year, then we can also project the needed transmission, distribution, and generation for each of these years and put that in the transmission development plan and the Philippine Energy Plan,” she said.

She added that attracting new power investments will depend on securing long-term commitments from companies locating in Paxilica, as developers typically require decades to recover their investments.

“At the end of the day, the bottom line is that we need to be able to secure the commitment of these locators in Paxilica because any generator to put up a plant will need 20 years to recover the cost of their investment.

So if we can have those locators promise that they will be there for 20 years, we are sure that we can find the generators who will also supply the electricity to Paxilica,” Guevara said.

In his fifth State of the Nation Address on Monday, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. pitched Pax Silica as the centerpiece of the country’s bid to become a major player in the global artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced manufacturing industry. 

Marcos said the United States-led, 23-member Pax Silica initiative would enable the country to “strive for bigger and greater things” by “venturing into areas heretofore unimaginable.” 

The proposed 1,620-hectare hub in New Clark City, Capas, Tarlac, is also expected to become a strategic component of the Luzon Economic Corridor, serving as an advanced manufacturing and logistics center in the global AI and technology value chain. 

According to the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, the project could generate up to P180 billion in annual revenues and nearly 200,000 jobs.