BUSINESS groups in Cebu are backing a congressional review of the country’s transmission planning amid continuing power supply concerns and elevated electricity costs in the Visayas and Mindanao.
The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) said it supports a “thorough, fact-based” congressional inquiry into the causes of prolonged yellow and red alerts, including possible generation shortfalls, transmission bottlenecks and regulatory gaps.
CCCI said unreliable power translates into lost production time, spoiled inventory and higher operating costs for manufacturers, exporters, business process outsourcing firms, hotels and retailers. It added that power reliability is critical to Cebu’s ability to attract investments and sustain growth as a regional trade, tourism and industry hub.
The chamber took note of the proposal backed by the Cebu Energy Rights Advocates to return national grid transmission planning to the government.
It said the current arrangement, where transmission planning and execution largely rest with the private concessionaire, has drawn scrutiny over delayed projects and the pace of interconnection projects between Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
CCCI said any structural reform should balance accountability with the need for predictable and continuous investment in the power sector. It cited the acceleration of interconnection projects, including the Visayas-Mindanao and Mindoro-Panay links, as priorities.
Meanwhile, the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) said it is open to studying the congressional proposal, particularly amid concerns over power reliability and electricity costs.
MCCI said it wants to examine the details and implications of the proposal, emphasizing the need for a long-term national blueprint for expanding, upgrading and maintaining the transmission grid as electricity demand rises.
“Whatever institutional or policy framework is pursued, it should prioritize reliable power, economic competitiveness, sustainable business growth, and improved living conditions for Filipinos,” MCCI said.
Yellow alert
On Wednesday, Sept. 23, the Visayas grid was under a yellow alert from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. with NGCP reporting available capacity of 2,607 MW against peak demand of 2,418 MW.
NGCP said 12 power plants are on forced outage this month, while three have been unavailable since August, two since June, six since May, three since 2025, two since 2024, two since 2023 and one since 2021. Another 16 plants are operating at derated capacities, bringing total unavailable capacity to 886.5 MW.
The grid operator attributed the alert partly to the unavailability of the Visayas’ large coal-fired power plants TVI 1, PEDC 3 and KSPC 2. A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement. / KOC