DOE: Households with no electricity increased from 800K to 1.8M in five years

The number of households without electricity in the country has increased to 1.8 million from 800,000 within five years, the Department of Energy (DOE) said Friday.

Energy Secretary Raeaphael Lotilla  made the disclosure during the Senate finance committee hring on DOE's proposed P2.5 billion budget for 2024.

He said based on the 2020 census, 1.8 million households do not have electricity as compared with 800,000 households  during the 2015 census.

“Population growth is a major factor,” Lotilla said.

“The number of households is increasing, and we cannot cope up with it given the present budgetary limitations. We will try our best to look for other means, but an increase in the electrification budget would increase the rate of implementation of our electrification program,” he added.

Lotilla then said that from having 98% level of electrification in 2015, it is now down to 96%.

He, however, said the use of other metrics in determining what makes a barangay energized is also a factor why the number of households with  no electricity increased, on top of population growth.

“The targets [for a place to be considered energized] have changed. When I was here [in the DOE] in 2005, 2006, if there is just one [electric] post in a barangay, it is considered energized,” Lotilla said.

“We are improving the metrics, such as how many are connected to the main center of the barangay, and we included the sitios down to the households [having access to electricity],” he further said.

In addition, Lotilla said there is a need to strengthen the backbone of the electrification program, the distribution lines, given that the country is often hit by natural calamities.

He said that typhoons leave worn out distribution lines and power generation systems, if not destroy them completely.

“There is a case in Homonhon wherein the National Power Corporation put up a renewable energy system, but it only took one typhoon to wipe out the entire thing. That is why we have been using [containerized] retractable photovoltaic systems wherein container vans could be used as shelters during super typhoons,” Lotilla said.

“And even if we have generation sets, there are 40-year old distribution lines which cannot effectively deliver the electricity to the households. There are weak links in every subsector of the whole chain, and we have to do something to improve these subsectors,” he said.

Senator Risa Hontiveros then said that given the numbers, the data from electric cooperatives putting the level of electrification of the country at 89% has basis.

“It (1.8 million households) represents the 11% of the households yet to be electrified,” she said.

Unfunded electrification for 1,500 sitios

Senator Raffy Tulfo, for his part, decried the P4 billion budget cut on the electrification program in the proposed 2024 budget after National Electrification Administration (NEA) chief Antonio Mariano Almeda said the it would leave the electrification program for 1,500 sitios unfunded.

The P2 billion budget for electrification under the budget of DOE and its attached agencies for 2024, Almeda said, would only cover 576 sitios.

“Hindi ba tayo naaawa sa 1,500 na hindi mabibigyan ng kuryente?” Tulfo said.

(Can't we even commiserate with those 1,500 sitios who won’t have electricity?)

hey should be given the right amount of budget instead of slapping them with b“For the DOE to function well, tudget cuts,” Tulfo added.—AOL, GMA Integrated News