Some outlier results in senatorial elections, no blackout

I say “outlier” results in the May 12 Senatorial elections because of surprising strong ranking of Bam Aquino at second, Kiko Pangilinan at fifth and Dante Marcoleta at sixth places, when various surveys show they would not make it in the Top 12. In the SWS surveys for instance for the Stratbase Group, the May 2-6 survey showed that Aquino, Pangilinan and Marcoleta would be at 16th, 17th and 18th places, respectively.

The latest SWS survey also projected Ben Tulfo placing at 4-5, Abby Binay at 7-8, and Bong Revilla at 11-12. Actual results show they are out of the Top 12 so far as of this writing.

Thus, out of the 12 Alyansa candidates of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration, seven made it – Erwin Tulfo, Ping Lacson, Tito Sotto, Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Camille Villar and Imee Marcos. But the last two were also adopted and endorsed by Vice President Sara Duterte and hence, have some political gratitude with the opposition family.

The five non-administration candidates who made it were Bong Go (topnotcher), Bato dela Rosa, Bam Aquino, Kiko Pangilinan and Dante Marcoleta. Conspiracy hypothesis (not theory) that I heard is that aside from Duterte endorsement, Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) votes have helped these five. No hard proof to show this except their placing in the top six. The arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte by the ICC and his detention at The Hague, Netherlands facilitated by the administration has backfired and millions of votes that could have been for the administration went instead to the opposition.

No blackout election

The Department of Energy issued a press statement on May 11 that “the Energy Task Force Election (ETFE) led by the DOE composed of key government energy agencies… made full activation of command centers across the energy sector, including those of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), National Electrification Administration (NEA), Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), and the DOE’s own Energy Sector Emergency Operations Center (ESEOC).”

The NGCP was giving two to three updates a day about their transmission lines and facilities from May 11 to 13. They showed power supply and demand in the three grids and there were stable and reliable reserves. For instance, on election day May 12 at 11am, the following were the reserve margins (supply minus demand): Luzon 8,372 MW, Visayas 1,313 MW, and Mindanao 2,021 MW. These were huge and comfortable margins.

Meralco also sent a public statement two days before the elections stating that its crews and personnel were already “on standby to ensure stable and reliable service in over 3,000 polling precincts, canvassing centers and vital election sites located across the franchise area throughout the election period.”

And indeed there was not a single instance of blackout, at least in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. Congratulations and thank you, DOE, generation companies, NGCP, Meralco, other distribution utilities.

About the blackout in Spain-Portugal again last April 28, I saw a paper analyzing it, but I cannot quote the author due to proprietory reason. It is a good paper and outlined the following: (1) initial trigger: inter-area oscillations when large grid regions (e.g., Iberia vs. Central Europe) begin swinging out of sync in terms of power flow and frequency, (2) renewables did not cause the outage but they contributed to vulnerability by reducing system inertia. At the time of the event, Spain’s generation mix was predominantly renewable -- solar PV 59 percent of generation, wind 12 percent, inertial sources (thermal, hydro, nuclear) only 29 percent. And (3) the cascading failures.

It concluded that more infrastructure are needed to avoid repeating the problem. These include four: grid-forming inverters and adaptive control systems that allow renewables to behave like conventional generators in critical situations, energy storage (batteries, flywheels) that provide synthetic inertia and fast frequency response, flexible thermal or hybrid peaking plants capable of rapid response when renewables fall short, and high-voltage transmission upgrades that strengthen interconnection and reduce bottlenecks.

These problems and new infrastructure were not needed before when the grid was dominated by fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil), big hydro and nuclear. There was regular distribution of baseload, mid-merit and peaking plants, and that is how Europe and the US developed and industrialized since the 1950s and even earlier.

The Philippines should keep and expand its conventional plants like gas and coal, introduce nuclear in the generation mix, and optimize hydro pumped storage as ancillary services and peaking plants. Our big problem yearly is too much water, too much rain and flood, not lack of water. The huge volume of rainwater simply drain to the sea quickly instead of being stored in dams, weirs, reservoirs for hydroelectric, potable and irrigation water uses.

The incoming legislators including the newly elected senators and congressmen/women should include in their priority measures having investment-friendly policies in generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.