Senate asks status of electrification

By Alena Mae S. Flores – August 29, 2019 at 07:30 pm
from manilastandard.net

The Senate energy committee chaired by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian asked the Energy Department to submit a comprehensive rollout plan in pursuit of the total electrification agenda.

Gatchalian said the agency promised to provide concrete data during the previous hearings in the 17th Congress on the government’s electrification program in April and August 2016.

Gatchalian asked the department for the status of the country’s electrification as the committee started the hearing on a bill that would spur microgrid development in unserved and underserved areas nationwide.

Gatchalian said that during the hearing of Senate Bill No. 175 or The Microgrid Systems Act, he and other members of the committee asked Mario Marasigan, director of the Electric Power Industry Management Bureau, on updates regarding the progress of the electrification program.

“One of the most important reasons for the department’s existence is to make sure that electricity is available in all of our households and the target is 2022. We cannot achieve it in 2022 if we do not have a strategy,” he said.