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In January 2022, Negros Oriental declared itself a clean and renewable-energy province, adopting what it called the country’s first local Clean and Renewable Energy (RE) Code.
The code applies to power generation, transmission, and distribution projects across the province. Its most consequential provision bans the construction of fossil-fueled power plants.
The ban is designed to be difficult to reverse. Under Section 16, it can only be lifted if a majority of residents seek its removal through a referendum, followed by approval from the provincial board and governor.
The code promotes RE investments through streamlined permits and incentives, while creating an RE council and providing for carbon credits to be split equally between the province and the LGU where projects are located.
The measure won unanimous backing from the provincial board despite political differences among its members.
San Carlos Diocese Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, a longtime environmental advocate and vocal critic of coal-fired power, hailed the ordinance as a landmark measure.
“For over two decades, our people took down at least five coal-fired power plant projects proposed in various towns across this island,” he stressed. “This was done to protect generations present and to come from the destruction that comes along with coal operations, which many communities in other parts of the Philippines are unfortunately forced to suffer today.”
Yet the Visayas now grapples with a different kind of power problem. Recurring red and yellow alerts since May have fueled calls for baseload capacity to provide power around the clock, raising a difficult question: must communities suffer shortages to keep coal out?
(Also read: Beyond the Price Cap: Fixing the Visayas’ Power Problem)
The Contradiction of Going Coal-Free While Relying on Coal Power
The push for a coal-free Negros, however, predates the province’s RE Code. In 2019, then-Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. declared the province coal-free through an executive order, following public and church-led opposition to a proposed 300-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant in San Carlos City.
Despite their RE commitments, Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental still rely heavily on fossil-fueled power generated outside the island, mainly from coal plants in Cebu and Panay. A 2022 Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development (CEED) study found that coal and diesel supplied 73% to 80% of electricity consumed by captive customers in Negros.
Even when the code was issued four years ago, it faced pushback from critics who questioned the feasibility of going coal-free.
Retired National Power Corp. (NPC) manager Wilfredo Magallano questioned whether Negros Island’s existing power supply could keep pace with demand, particularly as the province anticipated major developments, including a wave of mid- and high-rise construction.
At the time, the franchise area of the Negros Oriental II Electric Cooperative (NORECO II) was recording a peak demand of 60 MW. As of June 2026, the cooperative’s average peak demand has jumped to 91.08 MW.
Magallano also challenged plans to rely on rooftop solar and wind installations to power the city’s growing building stock, noting that many of these facilities will operate around the clock. Solar can help meet daytime demand, he said, but buildings would still need the grid in the early morning and at night when sunlight is unavailable.
He also pointed out that Negros Oriental is outside the Philippines’ identified wind-resource areas, making wind projects less practical for the province. In his view, adding wind and solar without firm backup capacity would provide only a limited fix to the island’s growing power needs.
Brownouts Renew Calls For Reliable Power
Residents across Negros, Panay, and the wider Visayas have grown increasingly frustrated by recurring rotating brownouts, according to Panay News columnist Erwin Delilan.
“Negrenses, Bacolodnons and Ilonggos keep venting their frustration on Facebook,” he wrote. “They have likened the rotating brownouts to Christmas lights — ‘patay-siga.’”
On its Facebook page, the Negros Daily Bulletin asserted in its local language, “We really need additional power plants located right here in Negros!”
The call for dependable baseload power is growing louder as electricity demand rises across the Visayas. At the 35th Visayas Area Business Conference, Roel Castro, president and CEO of Primelectric Holdings Inc., which owns Negros Power, said expanding investments, industrial activity, and economic growth across Panay, Negros, Cebu, Leyte and Bohol will drive demand higher.
While renewables remain central to the region’s energy transition, he noted that the grid also needs baseload capacity to cover supply gaps and maintain stability. For Castro, the transition must balance clean-energy goals with reliability, affordability, and the needs of a growing economy.
Frank Carbon of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI) echoed the same observation, saying, “The Visayas power problem is not simply that we don’t have enough power; we don’t always have enough dependable power where and when it is needed.”
Negros, he highlighted, remains particularly exposed, with limited firm generation on the island and a heavy reliance on power imported through the grid.
That distinction is crucial. Firm capacity is the amount of power a system can reliably count on delivering when it is needed, particularly during periods of peak demand.
Negros has roughly 200 MW of geothermal capacity and about 250 MW of installed solar capacity, with more projects expected in the coming years. But those figures represent installed or nameplate capacity, not necessarily power that can be relied on at any given time.
“Unfortunately, solar power reaches peak power production capacity only four hours in a 24-hour/day cycle,” pointed out Butch Bacaoco of the Negros Daily Bulletin. “These solar power plants need Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) to augment the power supply in the island.
Negros’ sugar mills also generate biomass power, using part of it for their own operations and exporting excess electricity to the grid. But milling typically runs for only six to eight months a year, limiting this source of supply. Power conditions were less strained when mills were operating and feeding surplus generation into the grid. With milling expected to resume by mid-October, their return could provide some additional support to the Visayas grid.
That seasonal boost, however, is no substitute for long-term capacity. “Negros needs more baseload power plants. Renewable power has its limitations. It would take years to build baseload power plants and BESS,” wrote Bacaoco.
What about the power the Visayas receives from Mindanao? Department of Energy (DOE) Undersecretary Mario Marasigan explained the region’s supply has also been constrained by the simultaneous outages of several major Mindanao power plants, reducing the electricity available for transfer to the Visayas.
Previously, Anthony Almeda, president of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, emphasized that the Visayas’ reliance on power imports from Luzon and Mindanao should serve only as a “supplement measure” rather than a long-term solution.
“Negros walang baseload except for isang geothermal. Puro renewable—solar. Kulang conventional plants (Negros has no baseload capacity except for one geothermal plant. It relies mostly on renewables—solar. There are not enough conventional plants),” Marasigan noted. “Pag may planta na nag-outage, kulang na po tayo (When a plant goes offline, we don’t have enough power).”
Marasigan acknowledged that yellow and red alerts could persist through the end of October.
(Also read: Visayas Generation Shortfall Forces 40-MW Daily Power Cuts In Iloilo)
The Economic Impact
Beyond the disruption caused by rotating brownouts, the Visayas power shortage is also pushing up electricity costs for consumers. Electricity rates have climbed to ₱15.74 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for customers of Northern Negros Electric Cooperative (NONECO), ₱14.28 per kWh under Negros Power.
Bacaoco explained that when demand outstrips available supply, market prices rise, pushing up generation charges. The tight supply situation also draws on ancillary-service reserves meant to stabilize the grid, increasing the corresponding charges when those reserves are fully deployed.
Bacolod Mayor Greg Gasataya said the city is closely monitoring the power crisis and pressing for urgent action as it prepares for the MassKara Festival in October, when an influx of tourists and activities will put added pressure on the city’s power supply.
Meanwhile, the youth environmental group Negrosanon Initiative for Climate and the Environment (NICE) said the rotating brownouts are disrupting businesses, classes, healthcare, and essential public services. It added that repeated power interruptions are putting livelihoods at risk, affecting students’ learning and hampering critical services, while exposing vulnerabilities in an energy system it considers too dependent on centralized and unreliable sources.
“People are now ranting. They really hate the rotating brownouts,” asserted Delilan. “What they want from the DOE or Secretary Garin is simple: Find power now.”
The experience of the past several months exposes the limits of being coal-free on paper. Negros may have drawn a line against coal-fired generation within the island, but its consumers remain connected to a regional grid that depends on coal and other conventional plants when renewable output and local firm capacity fall short. When that system is strained, the consequences are significant.
The answer need not be a choice between environmental protection and reliable electricity. Negros can continue expanding geothermal, solar, biomass, and storage while building enough firm capacity to keep the lights on when renewable generation falls short.
The power crisis makes one point harder to ignore: the transition has to be grounded in the realities of how people live and how economies function. A clean-energy future means little if the power system cannot reliably support the lives and livelihoods it is meant to uphold.
Sources:
https://energy.com.ph/negros-oriental-enacts-phs-first-renewable-energy-code
https://oxfam.org.ph/the-irony-of-negros-islands-abundant-renewable-energy/
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1063875
https://www.panaynews.net/a-test-for-sharon-garin
https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/07/26/regions/visayas-needs-reliable-power-supply/2391496
https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/09/13/regions/action-urged-on-negros-island-power-shortage/2423821