State think tank Philippine Institute for Developmental Studies (PIDS) said huge investments are required to fix the causes of power interruptions, which it estimates to cost the local economy P556 million per five-hour outage.
It reported the causes of electricity supply interruptions as broadly classified as environmental, supply, technical, and other issues, with environmental issues being “the most critical cause” among the four, which led it to recommend prioritizing the climate-proofing of power infrastructure.
“When electricity supply is not continuously given to businesses, this affects their income. When business incomes are affected, it cascades down to their employees,” said Kris Francisco, a research fellow at PIDS and author of the study “Electricity Supply Interruptions in the Philippines: Characteristics, Trends, Causes” which analyzed monthly interruption reports of electric cooperatives submitted to the National Electrification Administration.
She also stressed the need to provide assistance and to develop policies for electric cooperatives to increase their capacity and access to power supply, given their essential role in the power sector.
Climate proofing the country’s power infrastructure will require a significant investment, which the PIDS said can be incorporated into the government’s medium to long term plans.
Given the fragility of our power infrastructure, as demonstrated by the power failures in different parts of the country over the past few weeks, it has become obvious that solutions have to be implemented for this inconvenient and very costly situation that Filipinos have sadly become used to by now, especially those of us who reside in areas where the performance and infrastructure of the local distribution utility has been found wanting.
Whether these necessary upgrades, which include climate proofing the critical infrastructure, are still in the planning stage, in the pipeline, or have already been implemented, it is something that our power sector will have to spend on, sooner or later, preferably the former.
Hopefully our power sector, both from the government and private sector, are working on climate proofing, while we still have the time to prepare for the expected worsening impacts of climate change.*
