The Sangguniang Panlungsod of Bacolod City has approved a resolution urgently calling on national energy agencies and industry stakeholders to formulate and implement a comprehensive action plan addressing recurring power interruptions, inadequate reserves and other vulnerabilities affecting the Visayas Grid, particularly Negros Island and Bacolod City.
Authored by Councilor Caesar Z. Distrito, the resolution calls upon the Department of Energy, Energy Regulatory Commission, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines, Board of Investments and other concerned agencies to pursue coordinated immediate, medium-term and long-term measures toward sufficient, reliable, resilient and reasonably priced electricity.
Distrito said recurring red and yellow alerts and rotational brownouts demonstrate that the power situation requires more than temporary responses whenever electricity supply becomes critically tight.
“Every power interruption affects not only our households but also our hospitals, schools, businesses, BPO companies, water systems, telecommunications facilities, government offices and other essential services. We need a coordinated, measurable and long-term strategy that addresses the structural causes of unreliable power supply,” Distrito said.
The approved resolution proposes a 13-point Power Supply, Grid Reliability and Energy Security Action Plan covering the following priority areas:
- Immediate restoration of generating units under forced or prolonged outage;
- Improved coordination of maintenance and scheduled outages;
- Adequate contingency and regulating reserves and ancillary services;
- Accelerated completion of critical transmission infrastructure;
- Additional dependable generating capacity within Negros and other strategic areas;
- Strategically located Battery Energy Storage Systems;
- Accelerated development of solar, geothermal, biomass and other renewable-energy projects;
- Renewable-energy projects integrated with energy storage;
- Greater grid resilience, transmission interconnection and redundancy;
- Streamlined investment facilitation for strategic power projects;
- Emergency measures during periods of critically tight supply;
- Improved coordination and communication during grid alerts; and
- Timely public disclosure of grid conditions, unavailable generating capacity, reserves and the status of major energy projects.
The measure emphasizes that additional generation must be accompanied by sufficient transmission capacity. It calls for the accelerated completion of projects that would improve the transfer capability, redundancy and reliability of electricity flowing to, from and within Negros Island, Distrito said.
It likewise promotes the strategic installation of Battery Energy Storage Systems, which can store electricity when supply is available and release it when needed. Such systems may also support frequency regulation, reserve requirements, grid stabilization and the integration of variable renewable-energy sources, he added.
“Negros has significant potential for solar, geothermal, biomass and other clean-energy projects. However, renewable-energy expansion must be supported by storage, reserves, dependable generation and adequate transmission infrastructure so that our transition to cleaner energy will not compromise reliability and affordability,” Distrito said.
The resolution also urges the DOE and NGCP to provide the City Government and the Sangguniang Panlungsod with information on major generation, energy-storage and transmission projects programmed or proposed for Negros Island and the Visayas, including their current status and target completion or commercial-operation dates.
The DOE, BOI and other investment-promotion agencies are further urged to actively promote Negros Island as a strategic location for renewable energy, battery storage, dependable generation and other power-infrastructure investments, and to extend available assistance and lawful incentives to qualified projects.
At the local level, the resolution encourages the Bacolod City government, through the Office of the City Mayor and concerned departments, to facilitate investments in renewable energy, battery storage, distributed-energy systems and other technologies that can strengthen the City’s energy resilience, Distrito added.
Distrito stressed that a stable and reasonably priced electricity supply is indispensable to Bacolod’s continued development as a major center for commerce, business-process outsourcing and information technology, education, health care, tourism and government services.*
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