POWER CRUNCH LOOMS: PEDC warns Panay power supply may tighten by 2026 sans new plant

By Rjay Zuriaga Castor

With Panay Island’s economy and population expanding rapidly, the island will soon need a new power plant to meet its growing electricity requirements, a top official of a power generation company in Iloilo City said.

Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) Executive Vice President Atty. Antonio J. Cabalhug Jr. said Panay Island’s base load, or the minimum constant electricity demand, will match its actual power demand by 2026.

“Our base load, the target is in 2026, will equal the demand because for so many years we’re just targeting about a 4% to 5% increase, and Iloilo City is growing so fast, [there will be] almost 7% increase in demand,” he said on Tuesday, Oct. 7.

“If it follows that trend, we expect that by the end of December 2026, the base load and demand will be balanced, and we need to have an additional capacity,” he added.

Cabalhug said the increase in power demand marks a crucial milestone for the island’s power infrastructure.

“We need base load in Panay because the island has a growing economy,” he added.

The Panay subgrid currently has a demand of 540 megawatts and is projected to reach 600 megawatts by 2026.

PEDC operates two major coal-fired power plants in Barangay Ingore, La Paz district in Iloilo City, with a combined capacity of approximately 314 megawatts — two 82-megawatt coal-fired units and a 150-megawatt coal unit.

Cabalhug also warned that power supply may tighten further during plant maintenance shutdowns.

“We have a unit of 150 MW; if you maintain it, shut it down, then you will be short for 150 MW, and you will take that from either Luzon or Mindanao,” he explained.

In 2024, PEDC’s diesel-fired power plants were decommissioned due to high operational costs and a shift toward more sustainable technology.

The diesel plants were primarily used as peaking capacity, or units that operate mainly during periods of high demand, and they previously supplied up to 70 megawatts but had been derated to 40 megawatts due to aging equipment.

Without new capacity, Cabalhug said the Panay subgrid will be very dependent on the power supply coming from Luzon and Mindanao.

“Hopefully, there’s a new plant that will be built within the Panay subgrid; we are looking at the possibility because the only source is Luzon or Mindanao, or we build additional capacity,” he added.

Cabalhug underscored that “the most expensive power is no power,” recalling the islandwide blackout that crippled Panay in January 2024.

While the Department of Energy has identified Iloilo as having high potential for onshore and offshore wind energy, Cabalhug said PEDC remains focused on thermal energy, citing the intermittent nature of renewable sources and grid limitations on the ratio of variable renewable to base-load power.

“We’re using electricity 24/7, and we cannot afford to just use it for four hours and then sleep the whole 20 hours without power, and we really want a baseload plant.”

Since the region only has a year before demand reaches the base-load capacity, Cabalhug said they hope the DOE will update its guidelines, as their hands are currently tied by limited technology.

He added that they are also banking on the proposed Panay–Mindoro 230 kV Interconnection Project, which is scheduled for implementation between 2041 and 2050, according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines Transmission Development Plan.

Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) is an operating power plant of MGEN Thermal, a subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen Corporation (MGen), which is the generation arm of the power distributor Meralco.