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[av_heading heading=’EDITORIAL | Power interruptions’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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Saturday, May 13, 2017
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HOW MANY times have we experienced announced and unannounced power interruptions since January this year? We have lost count.
Are we seeing a sneak preview of a looming power crisis? If we have sufficient power supply, what causes the frequent power interruptions or fluctuations (read: low voltage)? If this remains unchecked, businesses will surely suffer. Investments will taper off. Jobs will be lost.
It is summertime in the Philippines and more people, residences, offices, and business establishments are consuming more electricity, primarily for their air-conditioning units. Do we really have enough energy supply?
The issue, however, goes beyond power interruptions but lost economic opportunities. Energy is strategic to our economic development. Power outages raise concern over the country’s long-term viability as an investment location. Unless the government acts, we will suffer persistent power outages that will turn away potential investors and derail economic recovery.
The power problem, in the Visayas and Mindanao particularly, has long been known and discussed – even during the Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo, and Aquino administrations. What has the government done to avert a power crisis? Are building more coal-fired power plants the solution? Environmentalists will have a field day discussing this. Are we assiduously building power plants run by alternative sources of energy from the sun, wind, water, and biomass?
Tourism and business outsourcing, two of the booming sectors in the Visayas and Mindanao, are heavily dependent on power. A power shortage could cripple these two sectors and drastically cut employment. The energy forecast for Mindanao has long been described as critical. That for the Visayas is likewise grave as the projected power demand is way below the supply capacity in the growing region.
Whatever economic gains we have achieved could be lost without adequate power supply and efficient distribution of the same.
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