High voltage towers that support transmission lines for electrical power distribution in the Luzon grid is seen from a residential area in Baesa, Quezon City on Tuesday, May 9 2023. Maria Tan, ABS-CBN News

MANILA - The Department of Energy on Thursday said that the current situation on electricity has reached crisis proportions.

After successive red and yellow alerts were raised over practically the entire country's power grid for several days, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla described the situation as a disaster.

Luzon, Visayas grids on yellow alert on Thursday, April 25

"It remains a challenge. It's a calamity and we are responding to it as needed," Lotilla said.

The DOE said the country can continue to expect red and yellow alerts in the coming weeks until the expected peak of the dry season in mid-May due to the intense heat.

Meralco earlier also said the worst was yet to come as power demand is expected to rise along with rising temperatures.

The forecasted peak demand for Luzon has already been breached with yesterday's demand rising to its highest for 2024 at 14,016 versus the projected peak demand this year of only 13,917 MW.

Lotilla said among the measures to be undertaken include cloudseeding and reduced working hours.

ERC ASKS POWER FIRMS TO EXPLAIN SHUTDOWNS

The Energy Regulatory Commission has called on 6 power generation companies to explain the recent outages of their power plants. A show cause order may be given if these power firms "in view of possible violations of outage allowances," the ERC said.

The agency said that last year, it imposed around P60 million in penalties on 14 generation companies for breaching the allowable number of outage days.

The ERC meanwhile noted that as power reserves thinned, power costs also increased.

Citing data from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), the ERC said average prices for Luzon increased by 47 percent in the week of April 15-21, compared to the average prices for the previous week of April 8-14.

"As for the average WESM prices for Visayas, data shows that the average prices for April 15-21, 2024 reflects an increase of 14 percent compared to the prices in the week of April 8-14," the ERC said. 

MORE POWER PLANTS COMING IN THIS YEAR

DOE Usec Rowena Guevara says more than 4,000 MW of power supply coming from various sources like coal and renewable energy, are coming online in 2024.

"These power projects represent a mix of both renewable and conventional sources," the DOE said.  

Guevara said this will cover the rising demand due to additional economic activity.

Lotilla said he remains hopeful the current situation will not happen in the summer of next year once the new power sources come online.