Thermal plants remain significant to Philippines’ energy security, AboitizPower says

This comes amidst peak energy demand during the summer. 

Thermal plants will remain significant to the Philippines’ energy security as electricity demand peaked over the past few weeks due to the hot weather, AboitizPower said. 

“[Existing] thermal plants will continue to have a significant role to play in terms of providing reliable and stable power for the country,” Rubio said in an interview with the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC).

“Energy demand has bounced back quite significantly. In fact, we are seeing record peaks in the last few weeks given the hot weather.”

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Rubio noted that the current supply and demand margins are ‘thin,” considering the only new investment for base load capacity was the 1,336-megawatt GNPower Dinginin Ltd.s Co’s power plant in Mariveles, Bataan. 

“One thing I’m sure of is that we really need to transition to cleaner technologies. In base load, today the option is liquified natural gas (LNG) as a transition fuel, and balancing that with renewable energy,” he said. 

“We’ll have issues with regards to costs or reliability if we just keep on pushing [solely] for variable renewable energy. It would [also] probably put [the stability of] our grid at risk.”