ILOILO CITY—The government is looking at sourcing out loans from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to partially fund the government’s 100-percent household electrification target by 2028.
Department of Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara said during the 16th Media Seminar with the theme “Powering Progress: The Path Toward the Philippines’ Clean Energy Transition” that around P72 billion is needed to meet the country’s total electrification target.
Guevara said, however, the Philippines would generate P315 billion in economic benefit by achieving total electrification, which is equivalent to 1.8 percent of the 2023 gross domestic product.
She said some 2 million households still lacked access to electricity, and increasing the power coverage up to 16 to 24 hours per day would also raise household income by 49.4 percent and expenditures by 52.2 percent.
Guevara said state-run agencies National Electrification Administration and National Power Corp. are in charge of fulfilling the total electrification target by 2028 as ordered by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
“If they are able to do 100-percent total electrification of the country, the economic benefit is P315 billion. That is 1.8 percent of our GDP. And the cost of total electrification is P72 billion,” Guevara said.
She said the DOE last week presented to the National Economic Development Authority and the Department of Finance the agency’s request for P72-billion funding, which received positive response because of the expected economic benefits based on study conducted by the agency and the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Guevara said that as the government could fund the entire P72 billion needed for total electrification, it was looking at the ADB and the WB for a possible loan.
She said the loan would supplement the P3 billion to P5 billion budget allotted for rural electrification annually until 2028.
