Recurring yellow and red alerts have kept the Visayas power situation under close watch, renewing questions about whether available generation and reserves are keeping pace with the region’s growing electricity requirements.
For Cebu and the wider Visayas, the issue extends beyond the latest alerts. As the region continues on a rapid growth trajectory, power reliability is becoming a longer-term competitiveness issue for businesses, households, and local economies.
At a May 26 hearing of the House of Representatives committees on energy and legislative franchises, National Grid Corporation of the Philippines President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Almeda called for a broader, long-term response.
Almeda reiterated the need for a ‘holistic, industry-wide, long-term development plan’ built around three priorities: sufficient non-intermittent baseload supply; an energy mix made up of geographically dispersed plants using varied technologies; and resource adequacy-based planning.
For the Visayas, he said such planning must also address the region’s continuing dependence on power transfers from Luzon and Mindanao.
Inter-island sharing: Only a supplemental measure
‘The Visayas dependency on power imported from Luzon and Mindanao must also be addressed as inter-island resource sharing must only be a supplemental measure,’ Almeda said. ‘These factors, in our view, highlight one thing: we need more baseload supply. Otherwise, red alerts will continue to be a regular occurrence.’
Inter-island sharing allows regions to support one another when electricity and transmission capacity are available. But it cannot substitute for adequate and dependable generation within the Visayas itself.
During one recent period of alerts, the Visayas was reported to have only 183 megawatts of available reserves – a narrow cushion for a grid supporting some of the country’s fastest-growing regional economies.
The loss of a mid-sized generating facility, the derating of several plants, a transmission constraint, or an unexpected increase in demand can quickly consume that margin and raise the risk of supply interruptions.
It raises a longer-term question: how can Cebu Province and the wider Visayas build an energy system with enough dependable capacity, renewable generation, storage, transmission support, and reserves to sustain growth?
Baseload’s role
Baseload power refers to generation that can operate continuously and provide a steady supply throughout the day and night.
It plays a foundational role because it remains available regardless of time, weather, or short-term changes in demand. This is especially important for an island-based grid such as the Visayas, where reserve margins can tighten quickly when demand rises, a major facility goes offline, or support from other regions becomes limited.
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That vulnerability was evident in May, when transmission disruptions and tight supply conditions in Luzon reduced power transfers to the Visayas, adding pressure to a region already facing a capacity shortfall during peak demand.
Baseload and other firm, dispatchable capacity help keep essential services, businesses, and households supplied during peak demand and unfavorable conditions.
Without enough dependable capacity, the system has less room to absorb outages, derating, transmission constraints, and other disruptions.
Building a balanced and reliable energy system
A reliable power system does not depend on one technology alone. Renewable energy, firm and dispatchable generation, energy storage, and transmission infrastructure perform different but complementary roles within a balanced energy mix.
Renewable energy is already an important and growing part of the Visayas power system. DOE’s May 2026 project summary lists more than 3,880 MW of committed renewable energy projects in the Visayas, compared with about 312 MW of committed non-renewable projects, along with about 420 MW of committed energy storage.
These projects will help diversify supply and support environmental goals. Firm capacity provides electricity when the system requires it; storage manages renewable variability; and transmission moves power to demand centers.
Project approvals and capacity targets, however, do not immediately translate into dependable power on the grid. Renewable developments still face challenges involving permitting, land use, financing, transmission access, grid integration, intermittency, and storage.
The challenge is to build the right mix in sufficient quantities and at the right time, not to treat energy security as a choice between one technology and another.
A shared roadmap
The need for a coordinated approach is already being recognized locally.
At the PowerForward Visayas forum in April, Cebu Governor Pamela Baricuatro announced that the province would develop a Provincial Energy Master Plan.
‘Under my administration, we are not waiting-we are acting,’ Baricuatro said. ‘The Province of Cebu will develop a Provincial Energy Master Plan that integrates national direction, local priorities and private sector initiatives.’
The plan aims to help make Cebu ‘energy-secure, climate-resilient and future-ready.’
Such a roadmap can move the discussion beyond individual outages and individual technologies. Long-term reliability will depend on how well new generation, storage, transmission, permitting, investment, and demand planning are aligned.
It will also require coordination across the energy ecosystem, from national agencies and regulators to local governments, grid operators, generators, distribution utilities, investors, businesses, and consumers.
Power reliability and regional competitiveness
The economic consequences of thin reserves show why long-term energy planning and investment cannot be deferred.
For Cebu households and businesses, power vulnerability is felt in interruptions, added costs, and uncertainty – from spoiled inventory and disrupted production to delayed services.
Cebu business groups have warned that prolonged instability can raise operating costs, add inflationary pressure, and affect the province’s attractiveness as an investment destination.
Talisay Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Carl Cabusas called for coordinated action between government and industry.
‘At this point, the focus should be on solutions. We already know the challenge before us: demand is growing faster than available power supply. Government and industry stakeholders should work together to accelerate power generation projects, strengthen transmission infrastructure, and ensure adequate capacity for the future,’ Cabusas said.
Those concerns go directly to Cebu’s competitiveness. For a province positioned as a center for manufacturing, trade, tourism, logistics, business process outsourcing, and real estate, reliable power is directly linked to investment confidence and economic growth.
No single institution or technology can provide the answer on its own. Long-term reliability will depend on how well the entire energy ecosystem works together and how quickly plans are translated into capacity that Cebu and the Visayas can rely on.
For a region whose growth increasingly shapes the national economy, long-term energy security must be built through coordinated planning before supply constraints become recurring crises.