PH Solar & Electricity News — Week of August 24, 2026
TL;DR
The Department of Energy is recommending that the ERC suspend around 40 generation companies that ignored show-cause orders, and about 10 of them are not even running. The Visayas grid went to red alert again on Friday, 95 MW short. PNB lent ₱6.215 billion to a 166 MWp solar and battery project in Iloilo, and RCBC lent ₱2.3 billion to a 75 MW solar park in Pangasinan. The DOE also wants a coal blending terminal built in Mindanao, noting that almost all Philippine coal is imported from Indonesia.
Policy
DOE moves to suspend around 40 generation companies for ignoring show-cause orders
Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said the DOE is recommending that the ERC suspend about 40 generation companies, most of them small diesel plants, for failing to answer show-cause orders. The DOE sent orders to over 200 gencos last month and a little over half replied. Around 10 of the plants are not operational at all. Cited failures include unreported forced outages and undelivered capacity.
What this means
This is the clearest official statement yet on why the grid keeps running short: some of the capacity counted on paper is not there. Note what enforcement looks like, though. The DOE is still drafting the rules that carry the penalties, and the proposed ladder runs warning, then ERC referral, then blacklisting. That is a process measured in years. If you are deciding whether to buy a battery on the theory that the grid will be fixed soon, this is your answer.
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Grid
Visayas grid on red alert again Friday, 95 MW short
NGCP placed the Visayas grid on red alert from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, with yellow alerts from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Available capacity was 2,307 MW against peak demand of 2,402 MW as of 8 a.m., a 95 MW shortfall. Red alert is the level at which rotational brownouts become likely rather than merely possible.
What this means
Fourth week running for the Visayas, which makes this the base case rather than an incident. If you live in Cebu, Negros or Panay, that changes what you are buying: size the system for outage tolerance, not only for bill savings, because a grid-tied array with no battery gives you nothing during the cut. Structural relief is dated, not imminent. The nearest large battery for this grid is the 80 MWh pack in the Iloilo project below, due in the second quarter of 2027.
Market
PNB lends ₱6.215 billion to a 166 MWp solar and battery project in Iloilo
Philippine National Bank led a ₱6.215-billion co-financing package for Levanta Renewables to build a 166 MWp solar plant with an 80 MWh battery energy storage system in Barotac Viejo, Iloilo. The project is due for completion in the second quarter of 2027. PNB First Senior Vice President Allan Ang said the bank remains committed to investments that help address growing energy needs.
What this means
Worth reading the ratio rather than the headline. 80 MWh of storage against 166 MWp of panels is roughly half a megawatt-hour per megawatt-peak, which is a smoothing and ramp-control battery, not an overnight one. Utility projects size storage for grid services; a house that wants to ride out an evening outage needs proportionally far more storage than this project carries. It is a useful correction to the assumption that adding a battery means running all night.
Market
RCBC lends ₱2.3 billion to ACEN and Yanara for a 75 MW Pangasinan solar park
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. extended a ₱2.3-billion loan to Renovable Earth Corp., the ACEN and Yanara joint venture behind the 75 MW Sual solar project in Pangasinan. The plant is expected to generate about 112 GWh a year, which the partners describe as enough for roughly 69,000 homes. It is part of the fourth round of the government green energy auction programme.
What this means
Do the division and you get a useful benchmark: 112 GWh from 75 MW is about 1,493 kWh per kW per year, against the 1,440 our estimates assume for a Metro Manila rooftop. A tracked, professionally cleaned ground-mount in Pangasinan beating a fixed Manila roof by 4 percent is exactly the right order of magnitude, which is a quiet vote of confidence in the number. Also note the lender: the bank writing this cheque runs a consumer solar loan too.
Policy
DOE wants a coal blending terminal in Mindanao, says 95 percent of coal is imported
The DOE is courting private investment in the first Philippine coal blending terminal, a facility that would mix low-grade domestic coal with higher-grade imports so local supply becomes usable in power plants. Mindanao is the preferred site. Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said the country has no energy security on coal because 95 percent of it is imported from Indonesia.
What this means
The generation charge is more than half a Meralco bill and it moves with the price of imported coal and the peso that buys it. That is the part of your bill nobody in the Philippines controls, and the DOE is describing it plainly. Rooftop solar is not a fuel hedge in theory, it is one in arithmetic: every kilowatt-hour you generate is a kilowatt-hour whose price cannot be reset by an Indonesian export policy or an exchange rate.