INDEED, a precarious situation with a strong possibility for it to escalate into a very precarious situation.
And we are talking about that incident a year ago, the January 2024 blackout plunging Iloilo City – and the rest of Panay Island – in total darkness for a week, and the 162 unscheduled power interruptions that went on for the rest of the year.
It can only mean the grid’s current power system is a failure and exposes the incompetence of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines’s (NGCP).
Clearly, this is unacceptable and the people demand real solutions to prevent another occurrence and not just lip service.
Ancillary services — regulating reserves, contingency reserves, and dispatchable reserves — are non-negotiable pillars of a resilient power grid. Yet the persistent outages and NGCP’s repeated delays in completing critical projects, such as the 3×100 MegaVolt Ampere substation in Iloilo City, show a disturbing lack of urgency. These failures place the livelihoods, investments, and daily lives of millions at risk.
Iloilo City, with its 13% annual energy demand growth, is rapidly emerging as a cornerstone of the Visayas economy. A reliable power supply is essential for attracting investments, sustaining industrial operations, and ensuring the comfort and productivity of its residents. Every blackout erodes investor confidence, stalls business operations, and disrupts households.
Without a doubt, NGCP’s reliance on the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) for ancillary reserves is insufficient. What Iloilo – and the wider Visayas – need is a comprehensive and area-specific strategy that goes beyond meeting minimum requirements. This includes prioritizing contingency reserves for high-growth areas like Iloilo and expediting delayed infrastructure projects. The excuses for delays, such as access issues, only highlight the lack of proactive planning and foresight. (PN 1/7/2025)
Of course, NGCP issued an assurance during a recent congressional hearing that measures are in place to prevent a repeat of the January 2024 blackout.
Lovely, but the skepticism expressed by “I Am Iloilo’s” sole power distribution utility, MORE Electric and Power Corporation a.k.a. MORE Power, particularly the delayed commissioning of NGCP’s 3×100 MegaVolt Ampere substation in Iloilo City, raises valid concerns. The substation, initially promised for completion by the end of 2025, is now set to finish only 1×100 MVA by mid-2025.
MORE Power president/CEO Roel Castro stressed the significant impact of 162 unscheduled power interruptions in 2024 alone, totaling 811 hours of outages attributed to NGCP, affecting their operations and their consumers lives.
To say that these NGCP-induced power interruptions i.e. blackouts stressed out the Ilonggos is an understatement.
With regards to the delay in the commissioning of NGCP’s 3×100 MegaVolt Ampere substation in Iloilo City, Castro has this to say: “To note, with the latest information we got, it’s just the 1×100 MVA to be finished in 2025. We are alarmed by the delay of this project. The number of outages that we’ve been having of 162 outages in one year alone is something very alarming.”
With that comment, Castro reiterated his appeal for the completion of the project to include the full 3×100 MVA capacity as originally agreed, highlighting the need to cater to the significant growth of Iloilo City and Panay Island, particularly in terms of investment and power demand.
It seems rather ironic that with all the modernization and upgrading of “I Am Iloilo City’s” power distribution system by MORE Power, it will all come to naught if NGCP comes short in providing the much-needed energy.
Here’s a thought: why don’t our congressmen, instead of holding investigations and grandstanding in aid of reelection, just amend the rather obsolete Epira Law to allow power utilities to operate their own power plants producing their own electricity to fulfill their power requirements minus the hassle and red tape of NGCP?
Finally, if another (God forbid!) blackout of similar magnitude as the January 2024 one happens and you really need to blame someone or something, then blame NGCP and not MORE Power as they are much a victim as we are./PN
