The Department of Energy is not seeing demand-driven energy shortage in the summer season but said the country needs power reserves to address unplanned outages.
During the hearing of the Joint Congressional Energy Commission on Tuesday, lawmakers repeatedly asked officials if there would be brownouts or blackouts from April to June. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said there should be unimpeded power supply especially for the cold storage facilities of COVID-19 vaccines.e ," Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said.
"The cost of no power or lack of power or intermittent power is higher than the cost of reserve," Cusi said. Mario Marasigan, director of the DOE's Electric Power Industry Management Bureau, said Luzon is not expected to hit the peak demand of 11,841 megawatts. There are also no major issues in the Visayas and Mindanao.