BEFORE I get into today’s discussion, I need to share a follow-up to my column about the potential problem of the use of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) from last Sunday (“The dirty little problem with energy expansion,” Oct. 4). As I explained, SF6 is commonly used in heavy-duty transmission and distribution equipment, primarily as an insulator and arc-dampener. While it is safe and harmless in every other respect, SF6 unfortunately happens to be one of the most powerful greenhouse gases (GHG) known to man, and so its release into the atmosphere — which is a common enough practice when equipment is being repaired or replaced — is rather problematic.
China is the biggest source of atmospheric SF6, but it is potentially a problem anywhere there is any kind of grid or distribution infrastructure, so I queried both the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) about how they handled it, but unfortunately, there was not enough time for either to respond before that column’s deadline. In the interim, however, the NGCP has talked to its engineering people, and provided some clarification, so an update is in order.
The good news is that, despite an utter lack of regulations requiring them to do so, the NGCP already has a procedure for handling SF6 responsibly and safely. A statement forwarded to me said the “NGCP [uses] sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) as an insulating and arc-quenching medium in certain high-voltage substation equipment, including gas-insulated switchgear, circuit breakers, and current transformers. SF6 is handled, monitored, and managed in accordance with applicable operational, safety and environmental requirements. Serviceable gas may be retained for reuse, while contaminated or unusable gas and associated cylinders are managed through appropriate treatment and disposal procedures. Relevant SF6 management guidelines are also undergoing review to further strengthen existing controls.”
So there you go. The NGCP is doing good business with respect to a potential environmental risk, despite the apparent hard-on our Energy Secretary Sharon Garin continues to have for the nation’s grid operator, which, at this point, defies any explanation other than it being a personal vendetta on her part.
In the Oct. 3 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy held in Bacolod City, the Department of Energy (DOE) chief seemed to have a hard time making up her mind as to the root problem of the persistent energy shortages in the Visayas. In one breath, she admitted that it was the result of years of poor planning on the part of the DOE to encourage the development of more generating capacity in the Visayas. And in another, she told the subcommittee and the assembled stakeholders and media that “the problem is really transmission,” despite earlier testimony from her and other DOE officials that the Visayas generally had a shortage of baseload capacity, which has been aggravated by six generating plants simultaneously going offline earlier this year.
Make up your mind, Sharon. And make it up the right way because anyone with even a modicum of understanding about how the electricity system works already knows that it is not “really a transmission problem.”
What I find rather frustrating is that Secretary Garin, especially since she seems to be particularly image-conscious, is making a rookie mistake in trying to assign blame that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, whereas if she stuck to the truth, she could make herself out to be the hero for trying to do what she can with a bad situation she inherited. People in the Visayas, business groups, local governments and energy-sector players themselves have been howling about the impending disaster from insufficient generating capacity for years. In 2024, a casual, back-of-the-envelope assessment by a number of concerned parties that I happened to be privy to came up with a reasonably sound estimate that the region overall would need at least 2,000 megawatts of new generation capacity by 2028 to keep up with its power deficit, and more if it wanted to support future growth.
Perhaps, a fourth of that can be accounted for by inter-island connections between the Visayas and Luzon and Mindanao, but no more, and for Garin to imply that the NGCP is somehow dropping the ball because there are not more lines in place to import power into the Visayas contradicts the Philippine Energy Plan and the Transmission Development Plan. The interconnections are intended for the transfer of surplus power, and are more useful for maintaining grid stability rather than being part of the primary supply for parts of the Visayas. Yet they are still managing to fill that role, which should be a credit to the NGCP for doing a good job of building things.
Could the NGCP — or, as an alternative, other third-party grid developers operating under the umbrella of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) — speed things up? Yes, they probably could, with some assistance, but as has been pointed out ad nauseam, transmission doesn’t create power, but only moves it around. If there is a shortage of supply, nothing is going to solve that problem except the development of more supply.
Again, Secretary Garin had the perfect opportunity to position herself as a leader of energy policy doing her best to solve a problem handed down through three successive national administrations. But instead, for reasons only she can explain, she has spent her relatively short time in office — less than two years — in office taking the low road and looking for someone else to blame. It doesn’t scan and, as a result, simply makes her look foolish, out of touch, and not in control of the important policy area placed under her responsibility.
A couple of months ago, I heard a rumor that Secretary Garin would be shuffled out of her job in “the next couple of months,” which, if that was true, would mean about now. The usual suspects among the self-styled consumer energy advocacy have been calling for her resignation lately, and while those are ordinarily to be disregarded, they might accidentally be on to something this time. On the other hand, an abrupt change in leadership at the DOE with less than two years to go in the current administration would be an undesirable signal of instability to the outside investors the country so desperately needs, so I cannot necessarily endorse it. Thus, the best-case scenario would be for our energy secretary to have a little humility, stop pointing fingers, work with those of us trying to modernize the laws governing the power sector, and address actual problems.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
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