Coal plants in Visayas-Mindanao and Palawan
PROVINCES & PROSPERITY
Bienvenido S. Oplas Jr.
April 26, 2026
https://palawan-news.com/coal-plants-in-visayas-mindanao-and-palawan/
This is somehow a continuation of the earlier paper in this column, “Coal plants in Luzon and Palawan” (April 07, 2026, https://palawan-news.com/coal-plants-in-luzon-and-palawan/).
Cebu province alone hosts a total of 894 MW of coal plants commissioned between 2010 to 2019. Iloilo hosts two coal plants with a total capacity of 452 MW. Negros island does not have any coal plants, but it regularly imports coal power from Cebu and Iloilo; otherwise, it might court a potential daily “Earth Hour.”
In Mindanao, five provinces host coal plants. Misamis Oriental alone hosts three plants with combined capacity of 802 MW, Lanao del Norte also hosts three plants with combined capacity of 866 MW. Davao del Sur and Davao Occidental each host a 300 MW plant.
Cebu, Iloilo, Misamis Oriental, and Davao del Sur are big provinces with huge provincial GDP of P483 billion to P1.25 trillion. In contrast, Palawan and the two Mindoro provinces have smaller provincial GDP (see table 1).
From the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP), data show that of the registered power plants at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) as of March 2026, of the total capacities in the Visayas grid, coal plants constituted 34% followed by geothermal and solar.
In the Mindanao grid, coal is 50% of total capacities, followed by hydro. Those are new coal plants commissioned only between 2015 and 2020 (see table 2).
Palawan can learn lessons from the seven provinces of Visayas and Mindanao that host the rich cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Lapulapu, Iloilo, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, and more. It is not possible to sustain the high business and economic activities there without huge supply of stable, reliable, and competitively priced electricity from coal plants.
Palawan still runs on predominantly big gensets that use diesel and bunker fuel. One liter of diesel can generate about three Kwh of electricity. So with diesel prices pre-Iran war of P60-P65/liter, the cost of diesel fuel alone would be between P20-P23/kWh, with machine depreciation, staff salaries, distribution cost, system loss, taxes, and other operating costs not included yet.
With the current high diesel prices, generation cost would easily rise to P30-P35/kWh. Adding the other costs like depreciation, salaries, distribution cost etc. would raise the cost of electricity in Palawan to P40-P45/kWh. But provincial residents pay only about one-third of that because they are subsidized by all on-grid consumers nationwide who pay the universal charge for missionary electrification (UC-ME).
There are moves to stop UC-ME in the future, meaning off-grid islands and provinces must find ways to bring down the cost of their electricity as the subsidies will dry up someday. Palawan, Mindoro and other off-grid provinces and islands can choose coal, small modular reactors (SMRs), run-of-river hydro, or intermittent RE like solar and wind.
Solar and wind are very land-intensive, and millions of trees in the midland to upland have to be murdered for land clearing to put up the solar and wind facilities plus the access roads.. Solar output at night is zero and small output in the daytime when cloudy and rainy. Wind output is also zero when the wind is not blowing.
Beautiful islands like Palawan and Mindoro should focus on food production and food manufacturing, tourism, and other activities. More land should be devoted for these activities and not to low-energy-density technologies like solar and wind. Coal power (and SMRs) is an old, mature, and proven technology that can help propel less developed cities and provinces towards modernization and economic prosperity.
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See also:
PN 1, Provincial GDP, challenges, and opportunities for Palawan, March 20, 2026
PN 2, Ho Chi Minh and Puerto Princesa, some observations, April 03, 2026
PN 3, Coal plants in Luzon and Palawan, May 04, 2026
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