A top official of Aboitiz Power Corp. warned Cebu’s demand for electricity will outpace supply if no new power plants will be built in the next three to four years.
Ronaldo Ramos, AboitizPower Thermal Business Group chief operating officer, said Cebu alone bears half of Central’ Visayas’ total demand, with Metro Cebu accounting for over half of the province-wide requirement.
“This is projected to increase by approximately 7 percent annually,” said Ramos during a forum hosted by the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry this month.
Ramos said this surge in demand underscores the urgent need for energy security especially if Central Visayas is to sustain the kind of economic expansion it had last year at 7.3 percent, which is currently the fastest in the country.
Last April, the Visayas Grid experienced supply challenges when peak demand soared to an all-time high of over 2,500 megawatts (MW), surpassing the available capacity of 2,200 MW, AboitizPower said.
Cebu is energy-dependent on neighboring islands, importing about 60 percent of its electricity needs, the company added.
Ramos said to help address this vulnerability, AboitizPower is looking to add a new 150 MW unit to its existing 340 MW Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) coal-fired power plant in Toledo, Cebu.
Ramos also noted the importance of baseload power plants like TVI for a balanced approach especially with the influx of variable renewable energy (RE) adding more intermittency to the grid.
AboitizPower also cautioned against a “RE-at-all-costs approach,” advocating instead for pragmatic solutions that facilitate a well-managed and just transition.
For this year, AboitizPower allocated P73 billion in capital expenditures, more than double last year’s P26 billion.
The company currently has a growth strategy of adding 3,700 MW of new RE capacity to have a total of 4,600 MW of RE by 2030.
As part of the initial expansion phase of 1,200 MW, RE projects totalling a capacity of 176 MW is set to come online in the first half of 2024, including the 17 MW binary geothermal power plant in Tiwi, Albay, and the 159 MW solar plant in Laoag, Pangasinan.
Construction for an additional 218 MW is also ongoing.
