Patience since 2024

ON SEPT. 5, Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said the rotational brownouts in the Visayas could end in early October. On Sept. 14, in Iloilo City, she said it would likely last into 2027.

Nine days. That is how long the forecast held.

We do not doubt that Sec. Garin is working. The grid was thin before she took the post in 2025. And no secretary can order a cracked rotor shaft to heal. Panay Energy Development Corp.’s 150-megawatt Unit 3 has one, and it will stay down until late October.

What we cannot accept is a recovery plan that runs on the word “hopefully.” The secretary leaned on it all Monday.

Take the batteries. A DOE simulation cited by the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities says 200 MW of battery storage could cut yellow and red alerts by half. The government has 253 MW lined up, 50 MW of it for Panay.

They are waiting on the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to finish the contracts and connect them.

Sec. Garin told reporters she issued NGCP a show-cause order “as early as June.” The DOE’s own Sept. 7 press release dates that order to August. Either way, the batteries are still not on the grid.

So what did NGCP answer? What connection date did it commit to? And what happens if that date slips — a fine, or another order?

We have seen this before. After the Jan. 2, 2024 Panay blackout, then-Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said NGCP “was capable of preventing” it. Regulators talked of sanctions. We are still looking for them.

The bills, meanwhile, arrive on schedule. The Visayas spot market averaged PHP 18.59 per kilowatt-hour in August, against PHP 4.80 in Luzon, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines.

Negros Occidental Rep. Javi Benitez says consumers still pay a PHP 1.04 per kWh reserve fee for reserves that were not reliably there — a figure we have not independently confirmed.

And on a typical day, 21 to 23 of MORE Power’s 29 feeders in Iloilo City go dark, sometimes with only minutes of warning.

Here is what we ask for. A dated connection schedule for every battery, signed by NGCP and made public. Weekly DOE reports on every offline plant, owner named. Penalties that fall on whoever misses a date, not on the ratepayer.

None of this is free. Batteries and the power barges Garin wants for Panay “are not cheap,” in her words, and consumers will carry them through generation charges. We accept that. Paying more for power that arrives is better than paying for reserves that do not.

The state of power emergency sought by the Regional Development Council 6 (RDC-6) is a harder call. It would speed permits for batteries. It could also clear the way for the 3,000 to 5,000 MW of moratorium-exempt coal now under DOE review, the same kind of plant failing Panay today.

If the President declares one, it should carry a sunset date and leave new coal out.

As for the Mindoro-Panay link, NGCP’s own plan schedules it for 2041 to 2050.

Christmas is 99 days away.

“Gamay lang nga pasensiya,” the secretary asked. Just a little patience.

Iloilo has been patient since January 2024.