MY column on Tuesday, wherein I suggested, among other things, that the Philippines would likely never be part of the Asean Power Grid (APG) initiative, attracted a few responses, one of which was, “You asked that expert to speculate, how about you do the same? What would it take, hypothetically, for the Philippines to be connected to the Asean-wide power grid?”
Well, even though my question during last Friday’s post-Asean Energy Ministers’ Meeting media forum was on an entirely different topic, I suppose my reader still posed a fair enough challenge, so I will do my best to answer it. However, I would like to emphasize that the word “hypothetical” is still doing a lot of heavy lifting here; just because a solution is conceivable does not mean it will be more likely, or even possible. I’m not the only one who thinks so; in a conversation I had with a vice president at Asian Development Bank (ADB) last year — ADB has committed up to $10 billion by 2035 to support the APG project — the view expressed was that the initiative “wouldn’t really do much for the Philippines.”
And of course, that is all due to geography; we are not only an island nation, but one that lies a considerable distance from the rest of the Asean members. For what it’s worth, we’re not the only ones missing the party. The entire eastern half of Indonesia is not contemplated for inclusion by the current APG plan, nor is Asean’s newest and most distant member, East Timor.
The pathway
Even so, connecting the Philippines to a transmission grid that links all of the Asean members is not technically impossible. It will be damned difficult and extremely expensive, but it certainly could be done. Under the APG, which has actually been progressing since 2009, the “main” Asean grid, so to speak, covers the countries of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, the peninsular part of Malaysia, and since it’s only separated from the mainland by about 2 kilometers (km), Singapore. Myanmar is also included in that, although due to Myanmar being a chronic political basket case, there has not been much progress in that regard so far.
Metropolitan Indonesia — Java, Sumatra and Bali — is one level of difficulty higher, but definitely achievable. Two interconnections, one from peninsular Malaysia and one from Singapore, are planned for Sumatra, which would require undersea connections of about 40 and 70 km, respectively. The Sumatra-Java undersea connection is about 30 km, and the Java-Bali connection would only be about 5 km.
After that, however, the endeavor becomes much more challenging. Under the Asean Interconnection Masterplan Study Phase 3 (AIMS-3), there is one priority grid-to-grid interconnection listed connecting all of the above to the island of Borneo, that being Java-to-Kalimantan, and it is literally the last item on the list. This would involve an undersea connection of about 340 km, if located at the narrowest distance between the two islands, not an impossible undertaking — there are high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines of longer length — but one that will be expensive and time-consuming to build. The AIMS-3 targets this to be carrying 435 megawatts (MW) of capacity by 2040, but it is implied that this is a very optimistic estimate.
Crossing the Borneo grid, which involves interconnections between the Indonesian Kalimantan states, Malaysian Sarawak and Sabah, and the Sultanate of Brunei, the final connection between the Philippines and the Asean grid would be the jump from the northern end of Sabah to the southern end of Palawan, the only feasible path available. This final interconnection is also a priority project under AIMS-3, and is part of a subproject under the broader APG initiative intended to connect the three countries that share Borneo (Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei) with the Philippines. The interconnection is planned to have a future capacity of 500 MW, with 196 MW targeted for operation by 2040. Depending on how it is routed, the undersea connection would likely be 150-160 km in length; feasible, but not easy or cheap to build.
That connects the Asean grid to the Philippines, but it still doesn’t connect the Philippine national grid, as Palawan is currently isolated from it. However, there are plans in the works; according to the Transmission Development Plan (TDP) overseen by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), a Palawan-Mindoro interisland connection is targeted for 2033, a Mindoro-Luzon connection by 2027 and a Mindoro-Panay connection by 2036–2040. Apart from the undersea connections (the longest one being Palawan-Mindoro, at about 220 km), these projects also include a number of land-based HVDC backbone lines to carry the power.
Unanswered questions
The good news is that the grid developments in the TDP will happen, eventually, Asean grid or not, and the TDP treats the prospect of the connection to the regional grid as only a possibility that the current TDP will facilitate if it ever happens. And it is certainly an “if” and not a “when,” although some of the easier parts of the APG have already been accomplished, and a few more are at least more likely than not.
The biggest question, and the one that seemed to cause the most worry among the experts discussing the outcomes of the recent Asean Ministers of Energy Meeting, is who is going to pay for the big grid-to-grid interconnection projects. The $10 billion ADB is committing to the APG initiative is a drop in the bucket, and the consensus is that there will need to be an enormous amount of private investment marshaled to carry out the overall vision. The grid operators at either end of an interconnection might be able to form joint ventures to finance the project, and they might not. For example, a rough estimate of the Sabah-Palawan interconnection using the most optimistic cost figures works out to about $1.7 billion (P106.8 billion), not counting the costs of infrastructure on either end to make it work with the respective grids. If NGCP and Sabah Electricity didn’t have the resources to do that, they would have to rely on outside investment. A large investment in which the only return would come from the transmission fees for power flowing across the interconnection is a tough sell, to say the least.
And from the perspective of national or regional grid operators and distribution utilities, the APG is going to necessarily be a limited resource. With all of the current plans foreseeing capacities of at most 400-500 MW, with that power likely being higher in cost (due to the financing needed for the infrastructure in the first place), it is going to be a supplement of last resort at best. The APG could help energy supply reliability to a useful extent, but it is unlikely to confirm the claims made now about lowering overall electricity costs.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com
