By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
The government’s Build Build Build thrust has been a hot topic in the past days, and many are led to evaluate how much growth and development have taken place in the past three years. One thing is sure, though: the demand for power has gone up drastically.
If our country is determined to pursue its Build agenda, and if we want to take the next big step into the golden age of infrastructure, then one fact remains: We need additional power capacity for the grid to meet the exponentially rising demand for electricity.
The government should move quickly as our thinning, and dwindling power supply situation is only getting worse.
The fact that we have been suffering yellow alerts in the past month, outside of summer, is a symptom of a drained power supply situation.
We have had more yellow and red alerts this year than any year in recent memory. We are slowly devolving into the dark ages of rotating brownouts. One also has to ask what this pitiful power supply situation will mean for power rates.
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It was important that both the government and the private sector took a stand in the past month to champion the quest for more power plants. The only way to get them up and running is to fast-track the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) and Power Supply Agreement (PSA) approvals so that their constructions can begin.
Bidding for new power plants ought to resume post haste, especially as we gear up for another year and another summer, where temperatures rise along with demand for power.
In a recent statement, Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco, Chairman of the Committee on Energy, said he hopes that the Department of Energy (DoE) headed by Secretary Alfonso Cusi, as well as industry players and stakeholders, act swiftly on the next round of biddings for much-needed greenfield baseload capacity.
Nowadays, the margin of error is so small in terms of power plants conking out. If one power plant breaks down, this will deplete the power supply automatically, possibly leading to brownouts and rotating blackouts.
This cannot be the case for a growing progressive nation we want the Philippines to be.
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