Power consumption up 5.7% in 2018
By Jordeene B. Lagare – April 6, 2019
from The Manila Times
ELECTRICITY consumption in the Philippines climbed by 5.7 percent to 99,765 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2018, the Department of Energy (DoE) said.
In its 2018 Power Statistics report released on Thursday, the DoE said this was higher than the 94,370 GWh registered in 2017.
Among the three regions in the country, power use reached 73,502 GWh in Luzon; 13,491 GWh in Visayas and 12,769 GWh in Mindanao.
The residential sector consumed electricity the most at 28,261 GWh, followed by industrial sector, 27,587 GWh, and commercial sector, 24,016 GWh.
In terms of installed capacity, coal remained the country’s leading source of energy last year at 8,844 megawatts (MW), up 9.9-percent from 8,049 MW in 2017. Renewable energy (RE) came in second at 7,227 MW, up 2.1 percent from 7,079MW.
Oil-based sources climbed 3.3 percent to 4,292 MW from 4,153 MW while natural gas slightly rose to 3,453 MW from 3,447 MW.
This brought total installed capacity to 23,815 MW as of end-2018 against 22,728 MW in the preceding year, of which coal accounted for 39.4 percent.
The DoE is expecting 6,398 MW of power generating capacity to be added to the grid this year, based on its latest list of committed power projects.
Coal-fired power plants topped the list with an estimated addition of 5,085 MW, mostly from the Luzon grid. Natural gas comes next with 650 MW, followed by RE with 593.8 MW.
One of the major power plants to go online is Energy World Corp.’s 650-MW Pagbilao Combined Cycle Gas Fired Power Plant in the Quezon province. The facility had its testing and commissioning in 2018, with target commercial operation set for this month.
Another is the San Buenaventura Power Ltd. Co.’s (SBPL) 500-MW coal-fired plant, also in Quezon, whose commercial operation date is scheduled in December this year.
SBPL is a joint venture between Meralco PowerGen Corp., the Manila Electric Co.’s power generation arm and New Growth BV, a unit of Electricity Generating Public Co. Ltd. of Thailand.
Meanwhile, the 600-MW coal power project in Zambales of Redondo Peninsula Energy, Inc. – a partnership between Meralco, AboitizPower Corp. and Taiwan Cogeneration Corp. has scheduled its commercial operation within this year.
The first unit of the 1,200-MW ultra supercritical coal-fired power plant in Atimonan, Quezon of Atimonan One Energy, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen, is to go online this month.
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) uses installed capacity as its basis for setting installed generating capacity and market share limitations annually, in accordance with Section 45 of Republic Act 9136, otherwise known as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001.
