Stormy months and energy infrastructure
July 24, 2025 | 12:00am
https://www.philstar.com/business/2025/07/24/2460176/stormy-months-and-energy-infrastructure
The ongoing southwest monsoon or habagat is one of the worst monsoon rains that I can remember in recent years. The cloudy and showery days started last Thursday, July 17, with strong rains that led to cancellation of classes a day after, or on July 18. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) projection as of Wednesday shows they foresee “yellow” alert for rains, 50-100 mm, until at least tomorrow, July 25. So at least nine days of dark sky and non-windy weather.
Luckily for us, the various energy players and agencies are doing the necessary preparations and precautions to save us from blackouts.
Meralco has been regularly issuing daily updates like the “Update on power restoration efforts in habagat-hit areas.” Meralco vice president and head of corporate communications Joe Zaldarriaga announced recently that “As we continue to closely monitor the weather situation given the entry of Tropical Depression Dante, we assure our customers that we will not stop until service is safely restored to all affected customers. Meralco also deployed high-bed trucks and motorized fiberglass boats to help in power restoration and aid in rescue efforts.”
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, the operator of our nationwide transmission system, also regularly issues updates about the status of transmission facilities that they are “under normal conditions,” that they are ready to activate the 24/7 operations of their Overall Command Center (OCmC).
The Department of Energy convened a meeting of the Task Force on Energy Resiliency related to continuing monsoon rains plus the entry of a new storm. DOE Secretary Sharon Garin emphasized the need for vigilance and swift action to ensure continued energy availability and stability even during harsh rainy conditions.
Southwest monsoon or habagat coming from South China Sea that occur from June to September bring lots of rains, minimum five days that the sun is hardly visible. Northeast monsoon or amihan coming from Siberia that occur from October to February bring lots of cold air and rain.
So solar and wind farms have little or zero output while business and household electricity demand continues. It is the fossil fuel plants like coal, gas and diesel, traditional renewables like geothermal and big hydro, that provide electricity 24/7 to the people, not intermittent renewables.
I remember that the Philippines, Luzon in particular, has experienced four “years without summer” because there were rains for 12 months – in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. It was only last year that there was three months of no rain, very dry and hot months from March to May. This year is another “year without summer” as there were rains even in March to May and June was regular rainy season.
It was the coal plants that provided ample supply and stable electricity those years. The share of coal as percent of total power generation was 56.3 percent in 2020, went up to 61.6 percent in 2021, 65.1 percent in 2022, 66.2 percent in 2023, and declined to 61.1 percent in 2024 as the plants experienced sub-optimal conditions under very hot days and weeks.
This year, the big gas plants of the consortium composed of Aboitiz Power, Meralco Power Gen (MGen) and San Miguel Global Power, the South Premier/Ilijan and Excellent Energy Resources Inc. LNG plants in Batangas are pumping huge electricity supply. See these reports also in The Philippine STAR: “Tycoons to complete Philippines’ 1st onshore LNG storage” (March 29), “Energy giants all set for 2,500-MW boost” (May 26). It quoted MGen president and CEO Emmanuel Rubio saying that “By the end of May, 2,500 MW of gas capacity will be available.”
So while coal plants output will remain high, their share to total generation will decline and be diluted by high power output from these two big LNG plants.
I saw these reports this year in The STAR, “AboitizPower expanding AI use across coal fleet” (May 30), and “AboitizPower steps up digital shift with AI-driven analytics” (June 10). It refers to their Project Arkanghel aimed at modernizing its existing coal plants to ensure availability, reliability and resiliency. Good. Their coal plant in Cebu helps supply electricity in my province Negros Occidental, and their coal plant in Davao since 2016 has greatly helped ending Mindanao’s daily “Earth Hours.”
On a broader view, government infrastructure agencies should prepare for rising rivers and lakes, rising creeks and esteros from flooding, not rising ocean. The former are real and actual occurrences yearly while rising ocean remains a fictional narrative.
Meaning public funds should be used for regular, annual, large-scale dredging of rivers and creeks, including construction of small artificial lakes, weirs and other water catchment and storage structures. Not in unproductive climate meetings, travels and bureaucracies.
Climate change is true. Warming-cooling-warming-cooling cycle since planet Earth was born some 4.6 billion years ago. Natural and cyclical climate change, nature-made and not man-made.
As this column has argued in the past, we should focus on net growth, not net zero. Thus we should have an agnostic energy sourcing policy, no favoritism between conventional fossil fuels vs intermittent renewables. Making those various energy sources become more stable, reliant and resilient especially in rainy, stormy or non-windy days and weeks should be a priority both for government and private energy players.
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