The Luzon and Visayas grids were placed on Red and Yellow alert on April 16, 2024. Brownouts are expected as power generators fail to meet demand amid forced outages in 19 power plants across the grid. The outages have left an unprecedented total of 2,117.3MW unavailable to the grid.

Majority of the country’s electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels like coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG). These fuels are promoted by DOE and energy companies as a consistent power source to make up for their damage to human health and the environment.

However, the constant and widespread failure of these fossil fuel power plants prove otherwise. The Luzon and Visayas grid are now experiencing power interruptions and curtailment.

In 2021 to 2022 alone, 27 coal plants had forced outages that lasted more than a month. Even worse, 40% of these came from coal plants less than 10 years old. Outages will only become more frequent as these plants reach retirement age.

Local governments have called out the unreliability of these fossil fuel power plants. Yesterday, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of La Union called for a Committee Hearing today, April 17, 2024, regarding the “frequent blackouts that disrupted the lives of the constituents,” particularly a prolonged interruption on March 16, 2024.

Frequent forced outages put the consumers and our economy at risk. They violate the power supply agreements (PSAs), which state that electricity must be available to consumers 24/7.

Consumers are also forced to pay more despite getting less. During outages, power generators purchase electricity from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). The added costs are shouldered by consumers.

Power surges from poorly managed rotational brownouts also further increase the bills consumers pay for. Yet power generators get away with continuous forced outages and are even moving to lighten penalties on said outages.

The government is also guilty of favoring fossil fuel power generators, such as allowing a higher number of forced outages. Its 2023-2050 Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) shows its bias towards allowing fossil fuel power plants to operate beyond 2030, even locking us in with fossil gas. It is complicit as well as it institutionalized inefficiencies of the private sector.

But with these outages, the case to phase out fossil fuels has never been stronger. It is not the time for distractions like fossil gas (LNG), which is just as dirty, costly, and deadly as coal.

It is time we transitioned to clean, reliable, and cheaper renewable energy.