MANILA — The Department of Energy wants to ensure that power distribution facilities are secure as the country is expected to experience La Niña in the coming months.

With above normal rainfall conditions expected due to La Niña, DOE Secretary Raphael Lotilla said in a briefing on Friday that distribution facilities may be affected by flood.

“The La Niña may bring rains and should brace ourselves for extreme events that may affect the operation of these plants,”Lotilla said.

DOE Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan assured that power supply will not be a problem, but transmission and distribution facilities are vulnerable to extreme weather conditions.

“Also we are facing difficulties with restoration when it comes to floodings dahil we prioritize safety rather than energization. During those times, ‘yon ang pinaghahandaan natin. How to transmit power because we have ample supply naman,” Marasigan said. 

Rains will meanwhile be an advantage to fill reservoirs of hydroelectric plants that have been on low levels because of El Niño.
Marasigan said around 15,000 megawatts will be available once these hydroelectric plants return on normal operations.

But as temperatures start too cool with the onset of the rainy season, demand for electricity has also gone down according to the DOE.

Most power plants that experience outages that caused yellow and red alerts in the peak of the dry season have returned to services.

“We have major power plants that have come into service. Latest is yesterday we have Masinloc 1 and SLTEC unit 2 coming online. However, we still have deratings on these power plants… This is relative also sa shift ng temperature natin dahil nagkakaraon na naman tayo ng moisture,” Marasigan said.

The DOE said it is working closely with the Energy Regulatory Commission in assessing and looking into the cause of recent outages of some power facilities.

With more than 5,000 megawatt of incoming thermal and renewable energy facilities, DOE is confident that the country’s energy demand will be met until 2028.

“Anticipating the timely testing and commissioning and coming into commercial operation of these power plants, we would say we’re good not only until 2026 but until 2028,” Marasigan said.