The Philippines' electricity consumption feared to jump 5% yearly until 2024

Is power capacity finally keeping up?

According to BMI Research, the Philippines is struggling to expand its domestic power capacity in line with surging power demand across the country. 

"We expect annual average growth rates in electricity consumption of 5.0% between 2015 and 2024, driven by improving electrification rates and robust GDP growth. Nevertheless, growth in power capacity is not keeping pace," BMI said.

This is primarily a result of business environment issues that are hindering the progress of infrastructure construction, including indigenous population opposition to projects, remote construction locations and a lack of institutional capacity to carry out pre-construction activities.

In light of this, there have been supply shortages - leading to power outages - across the Philippines in 2015. With further capacity additions needed, the government has implemented an Interruptible Load Programme, whereby the government pays large customers to reduce grid demand by running their own generators.