Cebu and the rest of the Visayas should grow an optimum mix of traditional and renewable energy to ensure power reliability and affordability, stakeholders said in a recent forum.
“The power demand of Cebu year-on-year is exceeding the national average. If we are to even be able to match the phenomenal growth that Cebu is experiencing right now, we would have to be very serious about generating more [power] capacity,” said Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said during The Freeman’s “Powering Cebu” business forum.
“Power is a crucial and non-negotiable ingredient to progress…Power gives life to the economy. If there is a lack of [electricity], then there is no economic growth to speak of,” she said.
The Department of Energy (DoE) anticipates that the Visayas and Mindanao region’s electricity demand would require huge available power capacity by 2050.
“For the Visayas, we could have… dependable capacity of 3,296 megawatts. That will just be sufficient to provide the demand and the appropriate reserves. That means we will continuously rely on the transfer of energy from Luzon and Mindanao. However, take note that Mindanao is also growing fast,” said DoE assistant secretary Mario Marasigan.
Aboitiz Power Corp.’s Thermal Group chief engineering and projects officer Don Paulino echoed the need for additional power in the two grids.
“Luzon sits at a relatively comfortable reserve margin of 300 to 700 megawatts. Similarly, Mindanao has around a 25-percent to 30-percent power reserve margin. If you compare that to Visayas, Visayas is around 8 percent. So you can see the stark contrast between the Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao grids,” said Paulino.
Paulino said the currently fleet of baseload sources provides balance and complement the intermittency of solar and wind.
“The direction to have renewable energy is very important, not just from a climate change [lens], but also from a mix perspective,” he said.
“However, because the sun can only provide power from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., what happens whenever there is no sun? What happens when there is no wind? For us to be more renewable, we need to be able to complement that with a proper baseload,” he said.
