Power distributor MORE Power has sought the intervention of Iloilo City officials in ensuring that the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) completes the approved uprating of its Iloilo City Substation to avert a looming power crisis.

MORE Power president and CEO Roel Castro laid this out to the Iloilo City Council in a meeting following the blackout incident in the first week of 2024.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), according to Castro, has already ordered the reclassification of the assets as transmission assets two years ago.

The 3x100MVA new Iloilo Substation was supposed to be finished in December last year.

But the project, which is under NGCP’s Transmission Development Program (TDP), has not been started yet and it needs a 450-day construction period.

MORE Power attributed the delay to the absence of a firm commercial agreement between NGCP and Global Business Power Corp. (GBPC) for the reclassified assets in La Paz district.

Castro said with Iloilo City being an investment hub in Western Visayas and with a load demand growth of 4%, the existing NGCP facility may not be capable anymore by early 2025.

“If NGCP does not immediately start the uprating of their Iloilo 3x100MVA Substation by 2025, the total loading of the 100MVA transformer of NGCP in Sta Barbara will be beyond the NGCP’s System Integrity Protection Scheme (SIPS) limit. As a result, MORE Power and ILECO 1 Pavia and Iloilo Provincial Capitol will be interrupted, he added.

According to Castro, the potential shortfall in NGCP’s substation capacity by 2025 poses a severe risk of supply curtailments and load shedding, leading to economic repercussions for Iloilo City and surrounding areas.

However, he said, if the NGCP’s 3x100MVA Iloilo Substation is implemented and given that the Cebu, Negros, and Panay backbone transmission project will be completed, the power supply will not be a problem in the years to come.

Castro also said that he had already written ERC Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta urging the commission’s intervention, citing the importance of the matter.

He also revealed this concern to the senators and congressmen during last week’s hearings concerning the Panay and Guimaras island power blackout incidents.

NGCP executives committed that they will finish the project by the end of December 2024.IMT