PE2 advocates for change in response to power shortages

The Philippine Energy Efficiency Alliance (PE2) is advocating for a strategic change in the country’s approach to alleviating power supply shortages. 

In a statement, the non-profit organization said this change requires giving precedence to the management of peak demand before planning new generating and transmission capacities across the grids of the three main islands.

“PE2 believes that our limited power supply capacities can be optimally planned and dispatched if we try to flatten our steep peak demand curves as an initial step. There is so much talk about beefing up our thinning reserves…but there are no conscious and concerted efforts toward shaving or shifting peak demand toward off-peak periods,” said PE2 president Alexander Ablaza.

Ablaza also underscored the urgency to take advantage of smoothing out the daily and seasonal peak demand curves before plotting new power plants.

PE2 observed that, with existing generating capacity, the grids are always scheduled for the summer peak demand in April and May, which had recently increased by up to 27% over the usual low demand in January. 

The summertime depletion of power reserves resulted from the chain reaction in which growing temperatures outside continuously increased the end-use economy’s energy requirements. 

In 2023, the Luzon grid reached a summer peak demand of 27%, resulting in an additional requirement of 2,638 MW of generating capacity. Meanwhile, the Visayas grid experienced a summer peak demand growth of 407 MW, while the Mindanao grid saw an increase of 295 MW in summer peak demand.

According to PE2, peak-shaving or load-shifting toward off-peak hours could help balance off the 3,340 megawatts (MW) increase in summer demand.

Permanent peak shaving could be carried out by replacing energy-consuming systems in the commercial, industrial, transport, and government sectors with more capable technologies.

Furthermore, a variety of energy storage technologies, such as thermal, kinetic, and battery energy storage systems, could be used to relocate a portion of the present peak demand to off-peak hours or periods.

“While it would be theoretically impossible to achieve a totally flat demand curve, our energy-use economy should at least aspire to reduce the 3.3 GW bump in peak demand every summer,” said Ablaza.