Brownout-prone Mindoro to connect to grid in 2025

MANILA  -To help address power interruptions amid supply shortfall in Mindoro, the island is set to be connected to the national transmission grid by the end of 2025, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).

“Mindoro will be connected [to the grid] through Batangas because the substations and transmission lines are there. Batangas also has a good backbone,” Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara told reporters.

Mindoro will be linked via the Pinamucan 230-kilovolt substation in Batangas, while Calapan City will serve as the interconnection point in Mindoro.

National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the private firm operating and maintaining the government-owned transmission grid, first unveiled plans to connect Mindoro to the Luzon backbone in 2011.

It began pursuing the project only in February this year after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) issued its approval for the Batangas-Mindoro Interconnection Project. The P16.8-billion project was originally set for completion in 2027, but Guevara said NGCP had agreed to cut the development period by two years, as requested by the DOE.

Guevara said the Mindoro linkup would also slash by 20 percent the total Universal Charge for Missionary Electrification (UC-ME) collected from consumers.

UC-ME funds the missionary electrification programs and projects of National Power Corp., which provides electricity to off-grid areas. A department circular states that the provision of UC-ME subsidy “shall cease upon the interconnection of an off-grid area to the grid.”

The ERC-approved UC-ME rate as of June 2023 is P0.1783 per kilowatt-hour.