THE power industry under the Marcos administration must put up more than 8,000 megawatts of additional power generation capacity to be able to serve the projected peak demand of about 25,000 megawatts by 2028.“By 2028, the peak demand in the Philippines will be around 25,000 MW up from our current 17,000 MW peak demand. To be able to meet that demand, we will have to make available more than 8,000 MW of new capacity.
The 57 percent will come from a mix of natural gas and coal. “Remember, our coal-fired power plants, many of them are young. While some are old, many of them are young and therefore there’s still useful life ahead of them,” said Lotilla. “As you know, the power and energy sector in the Philippines is in private hands. Therefore, the role of government is to support the initiatives of the private sector,” he noted.
Additional capacities from the uprating of existing power plants also contributed to the increase in installed capacity totaling 1,174 MW. On the other hand, the dependable capacity increased by 1,764 MW due to the return of the service of the Ilijan power plant, dependable capacity of which was considered zero since June 2022.