President Marcos Highlights Complete Grid Interconnectivity in State of the Nation Address

MANILA — In his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. announced the successful interconnectivity of the Philippines’ major island groups’ power grids, a project initiated in the 1980s and completed under his administration.

According to Philippines News Agency, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has made significant progress this year by energizing several key transmission lines across the country. This includes the Mariveles-Hermosa-San Jose 500-kilovolt (kV) line, inaugurated this month, which enhances the power grid’s reliability across the provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, and Bulacan in Luzon.

Additionally, the NGCP activated the Dumanjug-Corella 230kV Line 1 and the Dumanjug 70-megavolt amperes reactive (MVAR) component of the Cebu-Bohol 230kV Interconnection Project this month. This project alone adds a significant 600 megawatts of power capacity to the grid. Furthermore, the Cebu-Negros-Panay backbone project, energized last April, has played a crucial role in stabilizing the power situation in Western and Central Visayas, preventing the recurrence of power outages that these regions previously experienced.

President Marcos highlighted the energization of the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) on January 26 as a pivotal achievement. “Energy sharing and transfers between, among, and within the three island groups have now been made possible with the energization last January of the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection,” he remarked, emphasizing its significance in connecting the grids of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao for the first time.

“This is a defining moment not only for the power sector but for the entire country. Finally, we have connected the power grids of all three major island groups,” President Marcos added, underscoring the milestone’s importance in ensuring stable and reliable electricity supply across the archipelago.