MORE Power modernization cushioned city from grid crisis

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

The PHP 2.65 billion modernization program undertaken by MORE Electric and Power Corp. appears to have helped cushion Iloilo City from the worst effects of a power crisis that rattled the wider Visayas region over the past two months, according to a report by Iloilo-based think tank Institute of Contemporary Economics.

The study found that infrastructure upgrades carried out by the subsidiary of Razon’s Primelectric Holdings enabled the city’s distribution network to better withstand a series of grid-stress events between May and June 2026.

The Visayas grid experienced seven power interruptions between June 2 and June 19, which the Institute of Contemporary Economics, or ICE, described as “not ordinary local outages” but major grid-security events caused by thin reserve margins, large forced plant outages, and transmission constraints.

The situation reached its peak on June 10, when reserve margins in the Visayas grid fell to what the report called a “functionally negligible” 8 megawatts against peak demand of 2,421 MW.

That razor-thin margin prompted the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines to implement rolling blackouts through Manual Load Dropping, a controlled reduction of demand ordered by the grid operator to keep the system stable when supply and reserves can no longer safely carry full load.

“Repeated MLD shows that the system is being kept from failure by deliberately interrupting consumers. That is not normal resilience. It is managed fragility,” the ICE report said.

ICE estimated that each rolling blackout places about PHP 12.7 million in economic output at risk in Iloilo, within a range of PHP 9.0 million to PHP 16.9 million per event.

Although MORE Power could not prevent the generation shortages affecting the national grid, its automated distribution network allowed operators to carry out feeder selection, load rotation, and restoration activities more efficiently, helping maintain service to hospitals, schools, and other essential facilities.

“A modern power system is not one that merely restores service after interruption. It is one built with enough redundancy, automation, reserve capacity and coordination to prevent avoidable curtailment,” the report said.

The grid stress extended well beyond Iloilo City. In a June 18 letter to the Department of Energy, Primelectric reported that recurring Manual Load Dropping affected a combined 645,400 customers and erased 940,848 kilowatt-hours of energy across the franchise areas of MORE Power, Negros Power, and Bohol Light beginning May 13.

MORE Power alone accounted for 135,364 affected customers and 340,990 kilowatt-hours of energy loss, according to the same letter.

NGCP traced the June 10 Red Alert in part to reduced power imports from Mindanao, where generating capacity had been strained following a recent earthquake.

The report characterized the quake as an aggravating factor rather than the root cause, noting that the Visayas grid was already running on thin margins before Mindanao support weakened.

The episode also revives concerns raised after the January 2024 Panay-wide blackout, which the report described as a collapse event.

The recent interruptions, by contrast, were controlled curtailments that kept the grid from failing only by cutting power to consumers.

The findings come six years after MORE Power assumed control of Iloilo City’s distribution network from the former Panay Electric Company in 2020.

Since then, the utility has invested billions of pesos in rehabilitating the system, cutting distribution losses from about 30% to 4.75%.

It has maintained a residential electricity rate of PHP 11.13 per kilowatt-hour, among the lowest in the country.

The performance has also strengthened MORE Power’s case for expanding beyond Iloilo City, as the Senate considers proposals to extend the utility’s franchise to neighboring municipalities.

The franchise push comes amid an estimated 18.5% compounded annual growth rate in power demand recorded across Panay Island between 2020 and 2023.

ICE placed ultimate accountability for the recurring curtailment with the Department of Energy, which it said holds the planning, integration, and reserve-adequacy mandate for the power sector under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.

The ICE report urged binding reserve standards, fuller disclosure of outage data, and stronger transmission deliverability into Panay to keep emergency load reduction from becoming routine.