Cebu Energy Rights Advocates backed a congressional proposal during a Sept. 21, 2026 joint hearing to return national grid transmission planning to the Department of Energy and National Transmission Corp.
Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian urged the Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate prolonged Visayas electricity shortages and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market prices averaging P18.59 per kilowatt-hour from July 26 to Aug. 25.
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines placed the Visayas grid under a yellow alert from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, reporting 13 power plants on forced outage and 16 operating at derated capacities.
CEBU Energy Rights Advocates (Cera) is backing a congressional proposal to return national grid transmission planning to the government, saying weaknesses in the transmission system have compounded power supply problems in the Visayas.
The proposal, discussed during a joint hearing of the House committees on Energy and Visayas Concerns on Sept. 21, 2026, seeks to give the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) responsibility for transmission planning while limiting the mandate of privately owned National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to project development and construction.
Cera convenor Nathaniel Chua said recent red and yellow alerts in the Visayas, triggered by unscheduled shutdowns of several power plants, were exacerbated by an aging and inadequate transmission system.
Chua said records presented during the congressional hearing showed that while the Visayas and Mindanao grids faced power shortages, the Luzon grid had excess capacity of about 5,000 megawatts (MW).
“That massive 5,000 MW capacity in Luzon could have helped alleviate the situation in the Visayas and Mindanao, but our transmission infrastructure simply could not deliver it,” Chua said.
He said returning strategic transmission planning to the DOE and TransCo would allow grid expansion to be aligned with national requirements and consumer needs.
The issue is particularly critical in the Visayas, where major load centers are spread across several islands, Chua said.
“For a company with tens of billions in pesos in profit, yet failing to reliably connect the biggest load centers in the Visayas is a failure of NGCP’s mandate. They need to step up, and the government already needs to step in,” he said.
Business sector calls for action
The business sector also called for greater government attention to the region’s power supply.
“Our position is that the National Government should give greater focus to addressing the power situation in the Visayas,” Talisay Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Carl Cabusas said.
“As one of the country’s major economic centers outside Metro Manila, Central Visayas needs a reliable and sustainable power supply to support continued growth,” he said.
“We hope the National Government will work with the region toward a concrete, long-term solution to the Visayas power crisis,” Cabusas added.
ERC probe sought
Meanwhile, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian has urged the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to investigate the prolonged electricity shortages in the Visayas and Mindanao, which have pushed power prices significantly higher in the two regions than in Luzon.
Gatchalian said Wholesale Electricity Spot Market prices from July 26 to Aug. 25 averaged P4.80 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in Luzon, compared with P18.59/kWh in the Visayas and P19.56/kWh in Mindanao.
The Visayas grid recorded 33 red alerts and 96 yellow alerts from Jan. 1 to Sept. 7, Gatchalian said. The figures were also cited in a Philippine Information Agency report based on data from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.
Gatchalian urged the ERC to strictly enforce reliability standards and investigate the causes of persistent supply shortages. He also called for an investigation into possible anti-competitive practices or collusion among generation companies to determine whether market participants were “gaming the system.”
Cera seeks power barges
Cera is also calling for the immediate deployment of additional power barges in Panay and Negros as a temporary measure to stabilize local supply while longer-term transmission upgrades are implemented.
The group is likewise seeking an independent investigation into the simultaneous unscheduled shutdowns of several power plants that contributed to the recent alerts.
“We need transparency and accountability,” Chua said, questioning whether the outages were due to problems among plant operators, weaknesses in power infrastructure design or other factors.
“The public deserves answers, and they deserve reliable electricity,” he said.
Visayas grid remains tight
The Visayas power situation remained tight on Tuesday, Sept. 22, with NGCP placing the grid under yellow alert from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
NGCP reported available capacity of 2,504 MW against projected peak demand of 2,419 MW. It said 13 power plants were on forced outage in September, while 16 were operating at derated capacities, resulting in about 928.4 MW of unavailable capacity.
NGCP cited the unavailability of major coal plants TVI 1, PEDC 3 and KSPC 2, the derated capacity of CEDC 3 at 36 MW and limited power imports from Mindanao as factors behind the alert.
A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement. A red alert is issued when available supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the grid’s regulating requirement.
Cera said it will continue to monitor congressional and regulatory action on transmission planning, generation reliability and power prices and push for measures aimed at protecting energy consumers in Cebu and the wider Visayas. / KOC